AN UPRISING against the RCD-Goma, one of the major rebel groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo, threatens to further complicate efforts to bring peace to the war-torn Central African state.

Just a week before the Inter-Congolese Dialogue (ICD) in Sun City, South Africa, a local RCD-Goma commander known as Mushunzu started an uprising against the Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD-Goma) as well the Rwanda Patriotic Army that backs it.

Sources in Bukavu and Uvira in eastern Congo said "Commander Mushunzu" had mobilised ethnic Banyamulenge fighters from the rebel group and taken to the mountains to fight RCD-Goma, accusing them of being stooges of the Rwandese and failing to develop the region. 

"Mushunzu's rebels say they are tired of being puppets of Rwanda and that the exploitation of Congo's resources by the Rwandese has to stop," said Mr Omba Kamengele, the deputy director of Radio Maendeleo, an independent station based in Bukavu. The rebel leader has served in several areas of eastern Congo, including Uvira and Bukavu. He was said to have been in the rebel movement since its inception four years ago.

But Col Charles Kayonga, the spokesman of the Rwandan Ministry of Defence said on Thursday that he was not aware of the uprising.

Efforts to talk to RCD-Goma officials were all futile as they were said to be in South Africa for talks aimed at forging a new government in Kinshasa. The revolt reportedly started on February 19.

The rebellion is said to be in Minembwe hills near the towns of Fizi and Uvira. Uvira is about 140km from Bukavu town, on the Congo-Rwanda border. The insurgents had reportedly vowed to fight on, even as Rwanda urged them to negotiate. Sources said the rebel had vowed not to return to RCD-Goma.

The RCD-Goma was reportedly flying injured fighters and civilians to health centres in Uvira and to Bukavu hospitals. No figures of the casualties were available. The insurgents are reported to have defected with a large cache of arms.

RCD-Goma is among the main rebel groups in Congo and controls large swathes of the territory in the east, along the border with Rwanda. It sent 64 representatives to South Africa for the ICD talks, the same as the Uganda-backed Movement for Congolese Liberation's (MLC) of Jean Pierre Bemba.

Four factions of the Uganda-backed RCD-Kisangani (led by Ateenyi Tibasiima, Wamba dia Wamba, Mbusa Nyamwisi and Roger Lumbala) sent four representatives each. Observers blame the ethnic violence and sporadic fighting in RCD-Kisangani territory on divisions within the rebel group.

"With the new uprising in Congo, there is fear that a similar situation could be replicated in south Kivu under the control of the RCD-Goma," an official of the United Nations Military Observer Mission for Congo (Monuc) said in Kampala on Thursday.

The various RCD-Kisangani factions have been accused of fuelling ethnic animosity and occasionally fight each other for control of towns with strategic resources like coltan and gold. Since the start of this year, over 150 civilians have been killed in ethnic fighting in RCD-Kisangani territory, with Lumbala's forces capturing three resource-rich towns from the Nyamwisi group.

The Banyamulenge, who are ethnically close to the Tutsi in Rwanda, in 1996, rebelled against the regime of President Mobutu Sese Seko, which they accused of persecuting them because of their alleged Rwanda origin. They joined hands with Laurent Kabila's fighters and other groups, got military backing from Uganda and Rwanda. They overthrew Mobutu in 1997.