Rwanda dismissed on Tuesday U.S. charges that it was supporting M23 rebels in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo and said leveling accusations would not help pacify the region.
Rwanda’s denial came as the United Nations
announced that its newly deployed Intervention Brigade would begin
securing a zone around the strategic eastern Congolese city of Goma,
forcibly disarming people found carrying weapons there.
Western donors halted some aid to Rwanda last year after U.N. experts said Kigali was backing rebels in eastern Congo,
a region racked by fighting since the 1990s that has in part been
fuelled by a struggle to control rich mineral deposits there.
In a report last month, U.N. experts said M23 continued to recruit
fighters in Rwanda with the aid of sympathetic Rwandan military
officers, prompting Washington to say it was “deeply concerned” and to
call for Rwanda to stop its support.
“Those whose policy is to keep pulling countries of the region into a
conflict that is not of their making, we don’t think that is helpful,”
Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo said. “Scapegoating is not
going to help DRC.”
When asked if that amounted to a denial, she told Reuters in Nairobi:
“I think my comment is very clear. There are many complex issues in Congo and those have to be looked at with a view to try to reach a peaceful situation in DRC.”
Kigali has repeatedly and vociferously denied charges it backed M23.
Mushikiwabo was speaking on the sidelines of a meeting of ministers
from the Great Lakes region in the Kenyan capital, which included
discussions about eastern Congo and regional efforts to broker peace
between the rebel group and Kinshasa.
Alongside that peace initiative, Uganda has been hosting talks between Kinshasa and the M23 group.
Kenyan Foreign Minister Amina Mohamed told Reuters a draft deal had
been given to Kinshasa and the rebels, and that representatives from
both sides were expected to meet soon in the Ugandan capital to discuss
it. She did not give a date.
But another delegate at the Nairobi meeting said the two sides
remained far apart and little progress was being made in the Kampala
talks.
Congo’s U.N. peacekeeping mission announced on Tuesday it was setting
up a security zone around Goma and the nearby town of Sake, which
briefly fell into M23 hands last year, to prevent the population being
caught up in renewed fighting.
The mission, known as MONUSCO, said its troops would disarm, by force
if necessary, anyone other than members of the Congolese security
forces found carrying weapons within the zone after a 48-hour grace
period.
An accompanying map of the proposed zone indicated it would not cover any areas currently held by M23.
“There are many armed groups in this area. Now the brigade is out to
enforce peace by means of the security zone, this is the first stage,”
Charles Bambara, MONUSCO’s spokesman, said.
The operation will be the first for the nearly 3,000-strong
Intervention Brigade, which has been charged with aggressively
neutralizing armed groups in Congo’s lawless eastern borderlands.
The U.N. Security Council authorized the brigade, made up of
Malawian, Tanzanian and South African troops, following its failure to
prevent M23 fighters routing government troops and seizing Goma and Sake
last November.
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