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Rwanda deploys fresh troops in Congo
From
the Podium of the 57th Assembly of the UN, President Robert Mugabe
of Zimbabwe reminded the international community that the mandate
of the UN Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural
Resources and Other forms of wealth in the Democratic Republic of
Congo is coming to a close, in fact this December.
Mugabe
expressed his hope to see the Panel courageously expose the economic
agenda of the countries that had invaded Congo.
Mugabe
also seized the opportunity to announce the withdrawal his ally
troops from Congo and called for the immediate deployment of peace
keeping and peace enforcing forces or interposition forces on
the basis of the third phase of the UN Mission in Congo (MONUC).
Elsewhere,
Rwanda says, it has withdrawn 1,600 troops from the Congolese
city of Kindu, the chief city of Maniema province in eastern Congo.
But Vital Kamerhe, the Congolese government’s commissioner
in charge of the peace process, said those troops were only deployed
there a month ago in addition to those who were already settled
there.
Rwanda
has 35,000 troops in Congo, and at the time of writing this article
it has deployed three fresh battalions in Esatern Congo. According
to the Congolese local resistants, the Maï-Maï, the
Rwandan withdrawal was followed by a mssacre of 82 civilians and
this has been confirmed by MONUC officials. Like in Kisangani
lately, this massacre was orchestrated by RCD rebel commanders
Hérode Nguz, Bernard Byamungua and Lieutenant Pascal Sebatware
of the Rwandan Patriotic Army.
The
same scenario is repeating itself in the north east, especially
in the town of Isiro and Mugbere. After massacring hundreds of
civilians when they took control of these towns, rebels of the
MLC, led by Jean Pierre Bemba, Mobutu’s son in law, are
refusing UN officials and humanitarian aid organisations access
there, so that these crimes may not be uncovered.
At
the same time, Rwanda has settled 31,000 Rwandan Tutsi in the
Masisi area after it has been cleared of its Congolese native
people, most of them massacred by Rwandan troops, claiming that
these are Congolese Tutsi refugees who fled eastern Congo in 1995.
No access to the “refugees” is allowed.
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