Rwandan 'renegades' in DRC

2004-07-28 00:12

Pretoria - Any Rwandan involvement in destabilising the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo was not government sponsored but the work of renegade militia, a government minister said on Tuesday.

Foreign Affairs Minister Charles Murigande rejected a United Nations report accusing Rwanda of fuelling unrest on its border with the DRC.

The finding was a continuation of "so-called" UN expert panels "collecting rumours about what is going on in the region and writing reports", he said in Pretoria.

Any Rwandan involvement in destabilisation would be the work of those blamed for the country's 1994 genocide - soldiers of the former Rwandan army (ex-FAR) and Interahamwe militia, Murigande said.

Members of these forces have found a new home in the eastern DRC for the past 10 years, he said, and were looting and raping the local population because they had no jobs.

"The destabilisation taking place is not engineered or supported, nor is it the work of the current Rwandan government."

Murigande was speaking after co-chairing the third plenary session of the South Africa-Rwanda joint commission of co-operation with his counterpart Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

The UN report accuses Rwanda of helping recruit fighters for the recent uprising in the eastern DRC city of Bukavu.

It said the country continued to play a destabilising role in its neighbour.

Dlamini-Zuma said it was agreed at a recent African Union summit to re-establish a verification mechanism to confirm or disprove claims, such as these, made against any country on the continent.

Consultations on the body's revival were currently underway, she said.

- SAPA