IRIN Focus on Kabila deserters

“We’re tired of Kabila’s war and we don’t even know why we’re fighting,” a fugitive Congolese soldier from President Laurent-Desire Kabila’s army told IRIN on Saturday. He, and a group of soldiers who had fled into northern Zambia last month, said they had had enough of a pointless war and spoke of widespread human rights abuses in the ranks. The soldiers, a mixture of Congolese, Rwandan Hutus and Burundians were speaking from Nchelenge where they were awaiting a UNHCR decision on whether they could become refugees. Dressed in second-hand civilian clothes, a nervous Bomba Zeko Ziki, a Congolese platoon commander who crossed into Zambia with his men, said that he no longer had any interest in the war and that it was high time the conflict was resolved politically. They fled fighting in the DRC’s southern Katanga province that led to Rwandan-backed rebels seizing control of the towns of Peta, Pweto and Mulilo. Another told IRIN that pay and conditions in the government army were appalling and that physical punishment, starvation rations and imprisonment were common. Housed in a secondary school and closely guarded by heavily-armed Zambian troops, the deserters that spoke to IRIN are part of a group of 115 that have renounced their military status and have refused to be repatriated to the DRC. Although the soldiers interviewed complained bitterly about conditions in the army, more than 3,020 of their comrades chose to be repatriated to the DRC last week. Their return followed the intervention of a high-ranking Congolese officer close to Kabila, a humanitarian source told IRIN on Saturday. The soldiers went home by bus to Lubumbashi, capital of Katanga province. The Rwandan soldier who spoke to IRIN, who identified himself only as a Hutu named Michel, said that he had not been involved in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda but that he had fled the country after reprisals on Hutus by the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). He is likely to be screened by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), that has been cleared by the Zambian government to look for genocide suspects and witnesses among the fleeing troops and civilians. “I’m a Burundian, I was forced to join Kabila’s army, now I’m tired of the war, I just want to continue with my studies and I want the international community to help us,” said Issac Makambo, a 24-year old former law student in Kabila’s army now seeking asylum in Zambia. He added that when his comrades were repatriated and he expressed a desire to remain in Zambia he was afraid he would be forcibly returned. Makambo spoke of rock-bottom morale among troops serving in the government army, following the rapid fall of three key towns to the rebels since November. “Why did Pweto fall so easily to the Rwandans? Because nobody was prepared to defend it, doesn’t that show you that there is no morale left in Kabila’s army?” He said that Zimbabwean troops were also not prepared to fight to defend the town, adding that those he had spoken to wanted out of a foreign war “of no concern to Zimbabwe or Zimbabweans”. Some 300 Zimbabwean troops crossed into Zambia with the fall of Pweto, but have since been repatriated to the DRC. The soldiers’ cases will be decided by UNHCR in Geneva. If they become refugees they’ll be sent to a special camp for ex-combatants at Ukwimo in eastern Zambia. With other towns in southeastern DRC under threat from rebel attack, Zambian authorities are bracing themselves for a new influx of civilians and soldiers seeking sanctuary on their soil. Kabila, backed by Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola, has been fighting rebels seeking to overthrow him since 1998. The various rebel factions are supported by Rwanda and Uganda.