Word: kabila
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...late, most of the world's focus has been on the fighting between President Joseph Kabila's army and Nkunda's forces. When I met Nkunda, he made a compelling case for his rebellion, framing it as opposition to Kinshasa's cooperation with the génocidaires of the FDLR and offering a moving history of the persecution of the Tutsi. But like many militia leaders, Nkunda and his men have been accused of war crimes. I met a number of child soldiers who served in his militias, and his soldiers have been accused of participating in massacres...
...latest chapter in the crisis began in October 2008 when Tutsi rebel leader Laurent Nkunda launched an offensive, taking advantage of the weak Congolese President, Joseph Kabila, and his collapsing army. Nkunda quickly doubled his territory in the province of North Kivu and threatened to march on the capital, Kinshasa. The U.N. says a quarter of North Kivu's 4 million people are now refugees as a result. "This is war" was Nkunda's explanation...
...loyal to Nkunda are melting away in the wake of his arrest. But that still leaves myriad armed groups who know only the way of war--and who continue to prey upon the people of eastern Congo. It was precisely to deal with such disasters--and with leaders like Kabila and Nkunda--that in 2005 the U.N. World Summit adopted a set of principles called the responsibility to protect, or R2P. Intended to prevent a repeat of cataclysms like the one in Rwanda, when the world watched but did little, R2P enshrines in international law the justification and obligation...
...that crucible of conflict came a full-scale war involving a plethora of rebel groups, some Hutu, some Tutsi, some Congolese, some criminal mercenaries - as well as Congo's national army and the world's largest U.N. peacekeeping mission. In 1997 the rebels of Congo's Laurent Kabila managed to overthrow then President Mobutu Sese Seko and install Kabila as President. Later, Kabila's son Joseph took the reins when his father was assassinated. But none of them managed to end the war in the east. (See pictures of Congo on the brink...
Projecting an urbane reasonableness proves to be the theme of the day. At the press conference, Nkunda, 39, a father of six, says he is ready for talks whenever President Laurent Kabila chooses. He denies he is interested in the Presidency and speaks instead of a position in the Congolese army - "where I am most comfortable." Two days later, he expands on that, declaring he is ready to integrate his forces into it. His dream, he says, is not one of personal ambition, but of a "big Congo" no longer overshadowed by its smaller, more developed neighbors...