UN drones for DRC – Rwanda wants clarity
2013-01-15 11:33
Kigali - Rwanda will not support the UN plans to use
surveillance drones against rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo unless
legal and security questions around their deployment are answered, the
country's foreign minister said on Monday.
The UN is currently looking to strengthen its peacekeeping
mission in DRC, where army mutineers have launched a rebel movement in the east
called the M23, taking control of large swathes of North Kivu province, which
borders Rwanda.
The UN experts have accused Rwanda and Uganda of supporting
the rebels, a charge the two countries have sharply denied.
"We want to have clarity on a number of issues before
we will support that [surveillance drones]," Foreign Minister Louise
Mushikiwabo told a press conference.
"It is about a general sense of mistrust of what can be
done with drones much more than an issue with DRC. We would express the same
cautions on any country," she said.
If the unmanned aerial vehicles are introduced, it would be
a major first for UN peacekeeping operations.
DRC is already home to one of the UN's biggest
peacekeeping missions, with more than 17 000 troops, but the forces are spread
thin in the huge country and the UN is under orders to cut costs.
Rwanda became a non-permanent member of the UN Security
Council at the end of January.
"We also want to know as a country representing an
entire continent, exactly who [will] receive the information collected. It is
all of us on the Security Council?" Mushikiwabo asked.
"They are legal questions, they are security questions
and as long as those questions are not clarified, the Rwandan position would be
that of caution."
In light of the accusations made by the UN, several Western
countries have suspended their aid to Rwanda in the past few months.
