Radio Linked to DRCongo Dissident General Heard in East

Renegade Congolese general Laurent Nkunda, who is blamed for the renewed fighting in the country’s eastern Nord Kivu region, appears to have acquired a radio station for his group.

Congolese state radio reported on 5 September that the station, known as Radio Umoja (Unity, in Swahili), was “broadcasting from the hills of Masisi [town]” which lies northeast of Goma, the provincial capital.

Masisi is said to be Gen Nkunda’s birthplace and headquarters of his National Council for Defence of the People (CNDP) which he founded in July 2006. Fighters allied to Nkunda are said to be also operating in the vicinity of Rutshuru and Walikale.

It is unclear when the station began its operations or on which frequencies they broadcast, but a report on 4 September 2007 by Congolese web site www.congoforum.be/fr/ cited local authorities in August 2007 calling for the closure of Radio Umoja. The report said a team from the Nord-Kivu provincial legislature wanted the station closed since it was “insulting and sabotaging the president of the republic, Joseph Kabila, depicting him as inefficient and irresponsible”. The legislators said the station was broadcasting from Bibatama/Kilolirwe areas.

Rwandan News Agency (RNA) reported on 6 September that Gen Nkunda’s forces left Rutshuru “earlier this week” towards the border with Rwanda during which they “seized the transmitters of a local radio station”.

Sources told BBCM on 6 September that the Radio Umoja linked to Nkunda “is not related” to Radio Umoja de Walikale (RUWA) which is a community station operating in the Walikale area, west of Masisi. RUWA, which was formed in 2003, broadcasts in Walikale on 102 MHz and its signal can be heard in Beni (north of Goma) and Bukavu (south of Goma).

The www.grandslacs.net website that is operated by the Great Lakes Documentation Network, whose objective “is to disseminate as widely as possible a large amount of ‘grey literature’” in the region, identifies RUWA as a member of the Association of Community Radios in Congo (ARCO).

Originally published by BBC Monitoring research in English 6 Sep 07.

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