DAKAR (Reuters) – U.N. experts have evidence Rwanda’s defence minister and two top military officials have been backing an army mutiny in the east of neighbouring Congo, according to notes of their briefing to a closed-door U.N. committee seen by Reuters on Thursday.

The evidence is the strongest yet to indicate high-level support within President Paul Kagame’s government for the so-called M23 rebellion, whose stand-off with Congolese forces has caused thousands to flee their homes in the east of the country.

M23 is the name of a group of several hundred soldiers from the Congolese army that have rallied behind Bosco Ntaganda, a mutinous army general with past links to Rwanda who is sought for arrest by the Democratic Republic of Congo and wanted by the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges.

Diplomats say U.N. Security Council member the United States is delaying release of findings of the U.N. Group of Experts, an independent specialist panel on Congo security issues, to allow Rwanda to respond to accusations likely to test ties between the ex-foes.

Rwanda has repeatedly backed armed movements in its eastern neighbour during the last two decades, citing a need to tackle Rwandan rebels operating out of Congo’s eastern hills. But this time it has strenuously denied being involved.

The June 13 briefing of the U.N. sanctions committee said the UN Group of Experts had evidence that Rwandan army members had entered Congo to reinforce rebel positions and had provided logistical support and safe passage for Congo rebel leader Bosco Ntaganda and his forces in Rwanda, the notes said.

“The experts have implicated several high-ranking Rwandan officials who are directly involved,” said the contemporaneous notes of the briefing in New York seen by Reuters, which added the U.N. material had been verified by five separate sources.

The notes listed those officials supporting M23 as Defence Minister James Kaberebe; chief of defence staff Charles Kayonga; and General Jacques Nziza, a military adviser to Kagame. Kaberebe, they said, was “in constant contact with M23”.

No comment from the defence ministry was immediately available. However Kagame this week said the instability had nothing to do with Rwanda and accused others of trying to blame Kigali for Congo’s internal problems.

An M23 officer contacted by Reuters denied receiving Rwandan support, adding that any such backing would have allowed them to gain ground in the battle with regular Congolese forces.

“If a single time the Rwandans had supported us we wouldn’t be on this hill – we would be far away from this. This action is purely Congolese,” Colonel Vianney Kazarama said by phone.

The UN briefing was verbal. A written report of the Group of Experts findings is due in coming days to be submitted to the U.N. sanctions committee ahead of its final publication. There is no indication at this stage of any push to impose UN sanctions on either Rwanda or Congo.

The Group of Experts declined to comment on the notes or the content of the briefing. Separately, Congo’s Communications Minister Lambert Mende told Reuters he was aware of allegations against senior Rwandan officials, without naming them.

“There are some people of a certain rank cited in the Group of Experts’ report and by our own intelligence services … It’s the obligation of the Rwandan president and government to show that they are different entities to those cited,” Mende said.

From : www.af.reuters.com

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US blocking UN report on DR Congo rebels, watchdog says

The US is covering up information about rebels led by a man wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court, Human Rights Watch has said.

The global watchdog says Washington is blocking publication of a UN inquiry into rebels led by Bosco Ntaganda in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The UN has reportedly uncovered detailed information that neighbouring Rwanda, a key US ally, is backing the rebels in the east of the country.

Rwanda has denied the allegations.

The US has denied blocking the report. But it has now been several days since the report by the UN’s “Group of Experts” was expected to be published.

The row concerns a rebel group led by Gen Ntaganda, known as “Terminator” and other former officers in the Congolese army. They rebelled from the army and, with their men, now hold territory in parts of DR Congo close to the Rwandan border.

Tens of thousands of people have been made homeless by their recent actions and related military moves by other armed groups.

Most armed groups in eastern DR Congo operate rackets under which they extract precious minerals or “tax” the local population.

The Group of Experts has compiled a report on their activities. This is a long-term investigation into how UN arms sanctions against rebels in DR Congo are respected – or not.

According to sources familiar with the Group of Experts latest report, it contains details of the transfer of weapons from Rwanda to the rebels. There are also reported to be details on how Gen Ntaganda and his allies travel to and from Rwanda in violation of the sanctions.

But Human Rights Watch said the US had used its influence to resist publishing the report’s findings.

“The US and other Security Council members should do everything they can,” Human Rights Watch said, “to expose violations of UN sanctions, including by Rwanda, and not attempt to cover them up.”

Strategic relationships

Rwanda has strongly rejected allegations that it backs the rebels led by Gen Ntaganda.

The government in Kigali says the main problem in DR Congo is the existence of another armed group which includes people who took part in the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and then fled to DR Congo. President Paul Kagame of Rwanda repeated this concern at a press conference this week.

The 1994 genocide and its military fallout changed a whole range of strategic relationships in central Africa and is a key to understanding the current row.

Some 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered by radical Hutu groups. The mass killings of that year were only stopped when Mr Kagame’s Tutsi-led army conquered the country.

Some of the policies of the United States and other Western nations towards Rwanda are driven by the guilt they feel for not having stopped the genocide.

Mr Kagame understandably rarely misses a chance to point out that the United Nations and some of its powerful member states failed to help stop the mass killings of his countrymen.

They therefore have no right, he says forcefully at any forum, to preach to him about DR Congo or anything else.

This highly charged background means that whatever happens next to the Experts’ report will probably be controversial to one or other of the parties involved.

By Mark Doyle

BBC International Development Correspondent

From : www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa

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