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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Thursday 25 November 2004

DRC-RWANDA: Security Council calls on Rwanda to refrain from attack

NAIROBI, 25 Nov 2004 (IRIN) - The UN Security Council warned Rwanda on Wednesday to refrain from carrying out its threat to strike at rebel bases in neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo, saying the UN Mission in the Congo (MONUC) had the mandate to prevent the derailment of the fragile peace process, UN News reported.

The Council's caution came on the heels of a Rwandan warning on Wednesday and again on Thursday that it might invade Congo to track down and disarm Rwandan Hutu rebels who were moving forces to attack Rwanda.

The MONUC director of information, Patricia Tome, said in Kinshasa a Rwandan official told the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative in the DRC, William Swing, that a Rwandan army attack against the Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR) was imminent.

The FDLR is made up partly of militant Rwandan Hutus, some of who were responsible for execution of the 1994 genocide in their country. Present Rwandan government figures put the number of Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus killed in the genocide at 937,000.

According to UN News, MONUC said Rwanda's threat to hunt down the rebels in the Congo seriously threatened the political transition in the Great Lakes region.

UN News also said MONUC had voiced concern that this kind of action was "aimed at undermining the credibility of the international community's effort" to stabilise the Congo.

"Rwanda must respect international law and the authority of the Security Council, which is still present in the region," UN News quoted MONUC as saying.

MONUC, UN News said, was referring to the Council's mission to the Great Lakes region. The Council's delegates met Rwandan President Paul Kagame in Kigali on Sunday.

However, South Africa, which has become a major political player in Africa and in efforts to solve the Congo crisis, said it was time for firmer action against the FDLR forces, the South African Press Association (Sapa) reported.

"It is a South African view that we must get the UN to move to the second stage of forced disarming of the negative forces that are in the DRCongo," Aziz Pahad, the deputy minister for foreign affairs, told reporters in Pretoria on Thursday.

"This has been our own position, that you'll never get voluntary disarmament. And unless you deal with the Interahamwe and Ex-FAR and close those camps on the border of Rwanda this will always be an unstable situation," Sapa quoted him as saying.

Fresh batches of UN troops have started arriving in the Congo. MONUC said 5,900 additional soldiers and police officers were to be deployed, mostly in east.

[DRC-RWANDA: Kigali threatens to attack Hutu rebels in Congo]

[ENDS]

This material comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. All materials copyright © UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2004