UNITED NATIONS, March 28, (AP): Security in Congo’s mineral-rich east has deteriorated since recent elections, with a rebel group allegedly linked to neighboring Rwanda making “significant advances and expanding its territory,” the UN special envoy for the conflict-wracked African nation said Wednesday.
Bintou Keita told the UN Security Council this has created “an even more disastrous humanitarian situation, with internal displacement reaching unparalleled numbers.”
Last month, the United States told Rwanda and Congo that they “must walk back from the brink of war,” the sharpest warning yet of a looming conflict.
US deputy ambassador Robert Wood again condemned “the aggressive military incursion” into eastern Congo by the M23 rebel group and the Rwandan Defense Force and attacks including on UN peacekeepers.
He called on the leaders of Rwanda and Congo “to make the decision to pursue peace – for the sake of their people, the region, and the world.”
Wood described M23 as “a group which has perpetrated appalling human rights abuses against civilians, including sexual and gender-based violence.”
He called the international community’s failure to condemn the actions of Rwanda, which is a major troop contributor to UN peacekeeping forces, “dismaying” and said “the UN should reevaluate Rwanda’s credibility as a constructive partner in peacekeeping.”
The US State Department last month called for the withdrawal of Rwanda’s troops and surface-to-air missile systems from eastern Congo and criticized M23, calling it a “Rwanda-backed” armed group.
The Rwandan Foreign Ministry said last month that the country’s troops are defending Rwandan territory as Congo carries out a “dramatic military build-up” near the border.
The ministry’s statement said Rwanda’s national security is threatened by the presence in Congo of an armed group whose members include alleged perpetrators of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda during which more than 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutus who tried to protect them were killed.
The rebel group, known by its initials FDLR, “is fully integrated into” the Congolese army, the statement said. Although Rwanda has long cited a threat posed by FLDR, authorities there had never admitted to a military presence in eastern Congo.
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