20100405
ALLAFRICA

A United Nations peacekeeper and two contractors in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) were shot dead by insurgents who attacked the capital of Equateur province, Mbandaka, yesterday, first striking at the governor's mansion and national assembly before temporarily occupying the airport.

"The blue helmet was killed after he had been deliberately targeted by an insurgent while he was standing at the top of an armoured vehicle," the UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC (MONUC) said.

MONUC helped the national army recapture the airport, and UN police along with national police are now patrolling the street trying to bring some sense of security to the population as well as to the province at large.

The attack by a couple of dozen of insurgents, who arrived by boat, came as Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon proposed withdrawing 2,000 troops from for the 20,000-strong peacekeeping force by June, saying the DRC had made sufficient progress in restoring a measure of stability over much of its vast territory despite continued violence and human rights abuses by both rebels and the army in the east.

But in his latest report to the Security Council outlining the plan, Mr. Ban cited clashes late last year in Equateur, which is in the north-west, as showing that local conflicts can rapidly escalate if they are not quickly and effectively defused by the authorities.

The peacekeeper who was killed came from Ghana. One of the dead UN contractors was working at the airport, and the other, a pilot, was shot by the assailants when they were being chased out of the airport.

MONUC, set up in 1999, has helped restore a measure of stability and democratic processes to a country torn apart by years of civil war and revolts that resulted in the greatest human death toll since World War II - some 4 million people killed by the fighting and the attendant starvation and disease it produced.

But fighting has continued in the eastern provinces of North and South Kivu where the national army, supported by MONUC, has been fighting mainly Rwandan Hutu rebels and a collection of other insurgents, with both rebels and army elements being accused of mass rape and other human rights abuses.

In late October, fighting erupted away from this front in Equateur, when Enyele militiamen launched deadly assaults on ethnic Munzayas over fishing and farming rights in the Dongo area, driving over 100,000 people from their homes. Tensions have since expanded to most parts of Equateur and the DRC army has launched an offensive against the militia.