'Congo says insurgency is Rwandan army invasion'
http://www.newvision.co.ug/news/632871-congo-says-insurgency-is-rwandan-army-invasion.html
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Date: Jul 11, 2012
Rwanda
has consistently denied allegations by Congolese officials and United Nations
investigators that it is fomenting and supporting the Tutsi-dominated M23 rebel
movement in Congo's
mineral-rich North Kivu province, long a
tinderbox of regional ethnic and political tensions.
"It's not a rebellion, it's an invasion. We didn't
think that the Rwandan army would be throwing all its might into Congolese
territory," Erneste Kyaviro, spokesman for North Kivu
governor Julien Paluku, told Reuters by telephone.
Kyaviro appealed for a forceful response by the
international community, especially Western nations, to put pressure on Rwanda
to halt its alleged support for the rebels.
"You don't need a single shot fired to stop Rwanda," he said, adding that countries
like the United States, Britain, Norway
and Belgium should halt
their aid to landlocked Kigali
to make it end M23 operations in Congolese territory.
"We need the help of the whole world," he said,
adding that Rwanda
had deployed elite troops along the border near Goma.
No immediate reaction was available from Rwanda's presidency or foreign
ministry, which have in the past strenuously rejected the accusations of
Rwandan support for the Congolese insurgency.
The rebels, described by U.N. officials as apparently
well-equipped and growing in number, drove back the Congolese government army
in a determined offensive over the last few days, forcing U.N. peacekeepers to
withdraw into isolated operating bases in the hilly countryside. One Indian
U.N. soldier was killed in a rebel attack last week.
The rapid M23 rebel advance has opened the way for a
possible assault on the North Kivu provincial
capital Goma, where U.N. peacekeepers have reinforced their positions.
Goma residents reported that U.N. armoured vehicles were
guarding major crossroads and patrolling the outskirts.
The latest fighting in North Kivu, which began in April, has
displaced more than 100,000 civilians according to the U.N. and has once again
raised tension between Congo
and Rwanda.
The rebel successes have embarrassed the army and government of Congo
President Joseph Kabila.
M23 political commissar Colonel Vianney Kazarama also denied
the rebels received any support from Rwanda. "We have the support
of the population ... We took many weapons in Bunagana, Rutshuru, and
Rumangabo. Are these places in Rwanda?"
he said.
In a report last month, U.N. experts laid out evidence that
high-ranking Rwandan military officials were backing the Congolese rebels. The United States,
a key ally of Rwandan President Paul Kagame, and the European Union repeated on
Tuesday a demand for Kigali
to end this support.
"We have asked Rwanda to halt
and prevent the provision of such support from its territory, which threatens
to undermine stability in the region," U.S. State Department spokeswoman
Marissa Rollen said in a statement.
The M23 insurgents, who include mutineers from the Congo army, take their name from a March 2009
peace deal that ended a previous Tutsi-led rebellion in North
Kivu.
Since March, hundreds of ex-rebels have defected from the
army in support of a renegade general, Bosco Ntaganda, wanted by the
International Criminal Court for suspected war crimes.
Like the 2004-2009 rebellion, the current mutiny has its
roots in ethnic and political wounds dating back to Rwanda's 1994 genocide. Later
invasions of Congo by
Rwandan forces, and Kigali's
backing of Congolese rebels, fuelled two successive wars that killed several
million people.
CONGO
TO UN PEACEKEEPERS: "GET ENGAGED"
Kyaviro said the Congolese army, which has melted away
before the M23's advance, was reinforcing its units at Goma. But he appealed to
the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo, MONUSCO, to be more robust
in its response to the rebels' offensive.
"They (the peacekeepers) are not here to do tourism,
they should get engaged," he said, adding that U.N. troops had simply shut
themselves into their bases when the rebels took Bunagana, Rutshuru and other
places north of Goma in the past few days.
Rebel commanders and MONUSCO say the insurgents have since
pulled back from some of the positions they seized. A witness told Reuters on
Tuesday that M23 fighters were still occupying a military base in Rumangabo,
just 40 km (25 miles) north of Goma.
"The M23 forces appear to be well equipped and
supplied, their numbers have increased in recent weeks," a U.N. official,
who asked not to be named, said late on Monday, adding the rebels might move
west towards the Masisi area of North Kivu.
"That would again be of great concern because it is a
stronghold area and there's the possibility then of actually threatening Goma
on two fronts," the U.N. official said.
The official said MONUSCO was helping the Congolese army
reinforce the road from Rutshuru to Goma to prevent further advances by M23 and
ensure government soldiers were able to return to their positions to help
protect civilians.
Thousands of people have been displaced, but the death toll
from the recent fighting is not known. The U.N. Security Council has condemned
the rebel attacks.
In The Hague, the
International Criminal Court jailed Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga Dyilo for
14 years for recruiting child soldiers in eastern Congo.
MP asks Museveni to ‘come clean’ on Congo
http://www.observer.ug/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=19773:-mp-asks-museveni-to-come-clean-on-congo&catid=34:news&Itemid=114
Tuesday, 10 July 2012 23:19
Tuesday, 10 July 2012 23:19
President Museveni should explain the role Uganda is
playing in the armed conflict between M23 rebels and DR Congo soldiers, lest he
is perceived to have a hidden agenda, a legislator claimed yesterday.
Addressing journalists at Parliament yesterday, Geoffrey Ekanya, the MP for
Tororo county, said his sources in the United Nations Security Council had told
him that Uganda is one of the countries rooting for the splitting of DR
Congo, using the conflict in the eastern part of the country as justification.
The MP claimed that this plan could be tabled at
the African Union summit meeting that kicks off tomorrow in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
If these reports are untrue, Ekanya said, Museveni should come out with a
detailed statement explaining the nature of Uganda’s
involvement in the Congo
conflict.
“The conflict in DRC is going to cause problems
for Uganda.
Government was already aware of the bad situation but it has done nothing,”
Ekanya claimed.
Last week, after the M23 rebels captured Bunagana
town, along the Uganda-Congo border, defeated
Congolese soldiers sought sanctuary on the Ugandan side of the border,
something that Kampala granted without
consulting Kinshasa,
according to Ekanya. Ekanya added that DR Congo is Uganda’s key trade partner and the
civil war has already jeopardised business between the two countries.
“Some businessmen told me they took out loans to
supply goods to Congo.
Now they are stranded and do not know what to do,” he said.
Last week, Uganda deployed heavily along the
common border to protect its territorial integrity. The government has also
provided humanitarian assistance to the thousands of refugees flocking into the
country.
However, overwhelmed, Kampala yesterday called for international
help. The minister of state for Disaster Preparedness, Management and Refugees
Musa Ecweru, told a media briefing yesterday that most of the refugees are
women and unaccompanied children.
“These children just crossed the border and they
don’t know where their parents are,” Ecweru said.
David Kazungu, the commissioner for Refugees,
said Nyakabande transit centre, which acts as reception and screening centre,
is currently hosting at least 16,350 refugees.
In order to ease the congestion at Nyakabande,
some 2,500 refugees have been relocated to Rwamwanja settlement camp in
Kamwenge district. Rwamwanja is already teaming with 13,600 Congolese refugees
who fled to Uganda
after last year’s disputed presidential elections in the DR Congo.
Ecweru noted the risk of Ugandan children
contracting communicable infections should they come into contact with
Congolese children who are not routinely immunised.
ekiggundu@observer.ug
ssekika@observer.ug
ekiggundu@observer.ug
ssekika@observer.ug
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