Tutsi Rebels Contained, Congo Says

After a week of stunning setbacks, President Laurent Kabila’s army says it is holding its ground against Rwandan-backed rebels in the former Zaire.

Official media and spokesmen in Kinshasa, the capital, said Monday that Kabila’s loyalist troops had evicted Tutsi-led rebels near the mouth of the Congo River and were advancing on rebel positions in the east of the nation renamed Congo.

There was no independent confirmation of the official accounts of fighting on either front.

However, state radio in Rwanda monitored by the BBC on Monday night reported heavy fighting in northwestern Congo close to the neighboring, smaller Republic of Congo.

“Rebels fighting the Kabila regime are said to be in control of the oil-rich areas of Kitona, Banana and Muanda,” it said.

Kitona is an important garrison town while Moanda and Banana are on the small Atlantic coast and sites for oil and naval facilities respectively.

Kabila’s information minister and government spokesman, Didier Mumengi, told Reuters that army loyalists were advancing on rebel positions in the east, where soldiers from the ethnic Tutsi Banyamulenge community revolted Aug. 2.

State radio said the strategic Congo River ports of Boma and Matadi, about 220 miles southwest of Kinshasa, were quiet and controlled by government troops.

Congolese officials had not previously acknowledged that rebels had reached Boma, and there was no independent confirmation of the radio report.

Rwanda, meanwhile, told the U.N. Security Council in a letter circulated Monday that it had played no part in an uprising by troops of its western neighbor.

The Kinshasa government has accused its former ally of involvement in the revolt.