UN believes troops entered DRC
2004-12-18 21:30
Kinshasa - The UN mission in Democratic Republic of Congo said on Saturday that its observers were convinced foreign troops entered the country after a threat by neighbouring Rwanda to send soldiers back over the border.
A statement from the mission, Monuc, said it was "convinced foreign troops indeed entered the country after threats made by Rwanda" late in November, when the Kigali government warned it would hunt down Rwandan rebels in eastern DRC.
A Monuc official said: "We are sure there have been incursions, but we are not able to assert that it's Rwandan troops."
Fighting broke out this month in the volatile east of the vast central African nation between regular government soldiers and dissident troops who are among former DRC rebels taken into the army under a series of peace pacts to end a devastating five-year war.
Monuc "has stepped up its verification missions across the whole of Nord Kivu province. These teams have confirmed that the mutinous solders indeed received weapons and reinforcements from outside the DRC," the statement said.
Rwanda has twice invaded DRC, in 1996-97, then in the war of 1998-2003, with the declared aim of dealing with Rwandan Hutu extremist rebels held responsible for genocide in Rwanda in 1994 before fleeing across the border.
The Kigali government gave military support to DRC rebel forces during the regional war, which embroiled the armies of more than half a dozen other African countries.
President Joseph Kabila's government in Kinshasa has accused Rwanda of despatching soldiers who began fighting alongside the dissident troops, with whom they share an ethnic background and the Kinyarwanda language.
Kigali has denied the allegation, but warned that it would act if DRC troops and Monuc forces failed to disarm and demobilise Rwanda's foes in eastern DRC.
The Monuc statement referred only to "foreign troops" and the Rwandan threat, but witnesses and some UN sources in eastern DRC previously said Rwandan soldiers could be identified among the belligerents.
The UN peacekeeping mission "demands that foreign parties engaged in the conflict cease all support for the insurgent soldiers", the statement said.
The presence in DRC of Rwandan Hutu former government troops and the Interhamwe militia has been a constant thorn in the side of relations between the two countries.
The volcanic terrain, in parts densely forested, is also a base for several other armed militias which Kinshasa's troops have launched operations alongside Monuc soldiers to disarm, but initially on a voluntary basis.
Since December 12, the DRC's regular army has been trying to recover the town of Kanyabayonga in Nord Kivu from the mutineers, who are opposed to the arrival of reinforcements of soldiers in the province from Kinshasa.