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30 November 1998

ILLEGAL ARMS FLOW DAMAGING AFRICA, COMMISSION REPORTS

(Former Rwandan forces receive arms from other groups, governments)
(820)
By Judy Aita
USIA United Nations Correspondent
UNITED NATIONS -- The U.N. Security Council is deeply concerned by a
special commission's finding that arms and ammunition from a variety
of sources continue to flow to the former members of the Rwandan armed
forces, according to the current president of the council, U.S.
Ambassador Peter Burleigh.
In a written report to the council November 24, a special commission
probing the flow of arms to former Rwandan forces said that it has
"been struck by the damage done to stability and security in Africa by
the uncontrolled flow of small arms," particularly during the past six
months.
"These arms, like the unemployed young men who bear them, cross
borders rapidly and without hindrance to wreak havoc on the entire
subregion. This destructive process has been hastened by the close
links that have been established among the armed groups, the armies of
losers, which proliferate throughout central Africa, and of which the
former Rwandan government forces are the most violent, well-armed,
well-organized, and dangerous," the commission said in its report.
The commission also called it "a profoundly shocking state of affairs"
that the former Rwandan forces, which were responsible for the 1994
genocide in Rwanda in which more than a half million people were
massacred, have been given "a form of legitimacy" through alliances
with the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Chad, Namibia, and
Zimbabwe.
The commission said that it is "convinced that the ex-FAR and
Interahamwe have continued to receive arms and ammunition both through
their close links with other armed groups in Angola, Burundi, Uganda,
and elsewhere and most recently from the government of the Democratic
Republic of Congo."
Although the former Rwandan government forces and militia were widely
scattered during and after the rebellions that brought Laurent Kabila
to power in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DROC), the changing
alliances in and around the Congo "have unexpectedly worked to the
advantage of the former Rwandan forces," the commission said.
The former Rwandan forces "have now become, in effect, the allies of
the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and its allies,
the governments of Angola, Chad, Namibia, and Zimbabwe," the
commission said.
The commission said that besides the former Rwandan forces, up to 20
other rebel groups appear to be active in the Congo, Angola, Burundi,
Sudan, and Uganda, exchanging arms freely among themselves and
receiving arms from a variety of outside elements. Some ex-FAR and
Interahamwe are engaged in smuggling drugs into Africa to finance arms
purchases as well.
Most African governments, lacking the expertise, training, or
resources, neither monitor nor report on the sale or movement of small
arms in their territories or across their borders, the commission
said.
"And some clearly lack the political will to do so," it said.
Officially known as the International Commission of Inquiry on the
Flow of Arms to Former Rwandan Forces, the commission said that the
Security Council and regional groups working to find a political
solution to the problems in the region must recognize that the ex-FAR
and Interahamwe are a significant player in the current conflict in
central Africa and that any long-term solution must find ways of
dealing with them.
The commission also recommended that the council reaffirm its embargo
on the former Rwandan forces regardless of the purpose of the weapons
or materiel and petition governments to renounce and dissociate
themselves from them; consider asking governments in the Great Lakes
region to consider a moratorium on the manufacture and trade of small
arms; and call on governments to stop harboring, collaborating with,
or supplying rebel groups or militia. It recommended that governments
strengthen controls on the movement of illicit arms to the region.
It also recommended that the United Nations, aid agencies, and the
donor community work with governments in the region to deal with the
long-term economic and development problems that breed instability,
including disarming and reintegrating members of the armed groups into
society. It said that the United Nations should help governments in
the region to better understand that the uncontrolled movement of arms
and armed men through their territories is inherently destructive to
their own stability and legitimacy.
The Security Council and Secretary-General Kofi Annan have long been
concerned about the destabilizing effects of illicit arms flows to and
within the Great Lakes region and throughout Africa.
The council received the written report, along with detailed briefings
by Commission Chairman Ambassador Mahmoud Kassem of Egypt, on November
24.
The council will follow up on the recommendations from the commission
dealing with the illicit flow of arms in and to Africa, Burleigh said
after the briefing, adding that it will also take the commission's
report into account during any deliberations on Africa, especially on
the Congo.