KIGALI - Regional leaders have come out to condemn the recently leaked UN draft report that alleges Rwandan soldiers committed atrocities in the DRC between 1994 and 2003.

In an interview with Contact FM, Uganda’s Information Minister and Government Spokesperson, Kabakumba Masiko stressed that the UN has done nothing to resolve DRC issues, but is instead looking for an excuse.

"That is what the UN is best at; waiting for a bad situation which is never resolved and when people try to resolve the bad situation, then they turn around and start finger pointing,” Masiko noted.

Her Congolese counterpart, Lambert Mende Omalanga, outrightly questioned the credibility of the report.
"We won’t call this a report. It is just something written by journalists,” Mende said.

"They talk a lot about issues concerning Rwanda and Rwandans in Congo and forget about Congolese issues. They forget what is going on now in Congo where people are still dying.”

Experts say the leak was the UN’s manner of diverting attention away from its failures in the DRC.

Just days before the report was leaked, reports emerged that the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) and Congolese Mai-Mai militias attacked and gang-raped nearly 180 Congolese women and children in a series of attacks, between July 30 and August 3, in the Walikale region of eastern DRC’s North Kivu Province, only 10km from a UN base..

The UN mission in the DRC (MONUSC) reportedly lacked knowledge about the atrocities until more than a week later, when International Medical Corps (IMC), an aid group, revealed the incidents.

Mende said his government was waiting to see if the UN releases the final report, and then denounces it.

"If there is anything jeopardizing our effort to stabilize the country and this region, we won’t keep silent. We shall denounce it,” he said.

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