•Urges international community to act

NYARUGENGE - The government has condemned the alliance between the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) army Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo (FARDC) and Rwanda’s former genocidal forces Interahamwe now regrouped under Forces Democratique pour la Liberation de Rwanda (FDLR).

FDLR are remnants of the former Rwanda army (ex-FAR) and Intarahamwe militia who spearheaded the 1994 Genocide of Tutsi in which over one million people perished.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Rosemary Museminali yesterday met members of the diplomatic corps and conveyed deep concerns over reports that FARDC is fighting jointly with Ex-FAR/ Interahamwe in the eastern DRC.

"The main subject of today’s discussion is the current situation in our neighborhood in eastern Congo and the neighbouring areas,” Museminali told the diplomats assembled at the Ministry, referring to the dangerous alliance in the DRC.

"This is something we feel should be condemned and shouldn’t be a matter that concerns only Congo and Rwanda. It should be a matter for the international community,” she added, explaining government concerns.

"In the on-going fighting between the DRC government and the rebels in that area, the FDLR and Ex-FAR/ Interahamwe are being used and are fighting alongside the Congolese forces,” the Minister underscored, and reminded the diplomats of several earlier accords on security in the region, particularly the DRC that drew attention to the fact that FDLR is the central problem in the whole security issue.

The agreements alluded to include the Lusaka Agreement, the Pretoria Agreement, the Nairobi Communiqué, a UN resolution 1804 and the Pact on Security, Stability and Development in the Great Lakes region and the Tripartite Plus arrangements.

"All these identify the FDLR as the people who carried out Genocide and continue to wreck havoc wherever they are,” she reiterated, calling for joint efforts to ensure they don’t remain with the capacity and means to make war.

"Everybody must fight tooth and nail to ensure that these people are disarmed, demobilised and eventually those who can be reintegrated are integrated, so that the whole problem is uprooted,” she urged.

Museminali also told the meeting that the government  written to the DRC in protest over DRC’s actions which break all the mentioned international agreements.

Also present at the meeting was Amb. Richard Sezibera, President Paul Kagame’s special envoy to the Great Lakes Region, who clarified other related issues to the media..

"We have also written to other partners, whether it’s the EU, whether it’s on our own African continent and all other partners that we know are concerned by the issue of security in the region,” she added, pointing out that government had received reports that people identified as Rwandans on Congolese territory were being arrested, beaten, tortured and even killed.

Sezibera reiterated that Rwanda was not involved in the DRC, and negated allegations that the country was amassing troops on the border with DRC, among others.

"There is no military build-up but Rwandan troops continue to guard Rwandans’ security within the country’s border,” Amb. Sezibera said, and added his voice to the condemnation of the treatment of Rwandans.

He pointed out that there are very many Congolese citizens living peacefully in Rwanda and that it was ‘criminal political thought’ if the DRC government continued killing people like that.

Many commentators agree that the present scenario points to the fact that, unlike what was earlier believed that the DRC lacked the capacity to disarm the genocidal groups,  it also has no will.

This is largely indicated by several reports that FARDC is colluding with rebel groups, including the FDLR in illegal mining, among others.

Most recently, Global Witness, an NGO that highlights the links between environmental exploitation and human rights abuses, revealed that the DRC national army and rebel groups are involved in mining gold and tin in eastern DRC, a revelation that was not new even though alarming, Rwandan officials underlined then.

Contrary to what is expected of the DRC army - flushing out the FDLR rebels and others - Global Witness said that the national army and rebels were actually cooperating with each other in mining operations.

"We visited North and South Kivu to look specifically at the involvement of armed groups and the army in mining. What we discovered particularly was that the FDLR, one of the main armed groups operating in these areas, and the national army, are in a kind of relationship of, I would say, tacit support or even, in some cases, connivance or complicity,” Global Witness’ Karina Tertsakian told the VOA Africa Service last month.

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