DRC wary of Rwanda attack

2008-10-09 18:16

Kinshasa - The Democratic Republic of Congo accused Rwanda on Thursday of sending troops to the DRC's Nord-Kivu region to support rebels fighting government forces.

"There is real proof of Rwanda's involvement in fighting between our army and the CNDP (National Congress for the Defence of the People)," DRC Foreign Minister Antipas Mbusa Nyamwisi told AFP.

Nyamwisi claimed a Rwandan army officer had been captured in the Rutshuru region, close to the country's border with Rwanda.

It was the second such charge against Kigali in hours, after the DRC envoy to the UN Atoki Ileka said on Wednesday a Rwandan attack on the eastern city of Goma was "imminent," and called on the UN Security Council to intervene.

Forces loyal to DRC's renegade ethnic Tutsi leader Laurent Nkunda on Wednesday seized the Rumangabo military base, after intense fighting with the Congolese army.

The base, 50km north of Goma, was an important army stronghold in the region.

A military source told AFP that the attack had been "carried out by a CNDP battalion supported by Rwandan soldiers".

"Faced with the superior numbers of the attacks, the FARDC (Congolese army) was forced to withdraw from the base," a separate military official involved in the operation said.

Unfounded charges

UN envoy Ileka told AFP on Wednesday that DRC authorities had "observed concentrations of Rwandan troops in the Rwandan border town of Gisenyi," and that this suggested that an attack on Goma was "imminent".

"We have asked the Security Council to put the necessary pressure on Rwanda to prevent a new (Rwandan) aggression against DRC," Ileka said, also alleging that troops in Rwandan uniforms had taken part in the capture of Rumangabo.

Rwanda's UN Ambassador Joseph Nsengimana dismissed Ileka's charges as unfounded.

He told AFP that Kinshasa levelled the accusations only after Kigali sent a letter to the DRC foreign ministry last week citing reports of collusion between DRC government troops and Rwandan Hutu rebels of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).

FDLR members are accused of having taken part in the 1994 genocide that claimed the lives of some 800 000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994 in Rwanda.

Renewed fighting broke out August 28 in eastern DRC, with government troops and Nkunda's forces violating a ceasefire reached under the Goma peace accord in January.

- AFP