President Joseph Kabila backed moves to renew the mandate of UN peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), but said failure to deploy sufficient forces would be ”a waste of time.”
Kabila was speaking to reporters in Rome ahead of a UN Security Council vote on Friday on whether to extend the mandate of nearly 6 000 MONUC (UN Observer Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo) forces for another year.
”A year ago I insisted that the number that will be sufficient to bring about a situation where pacification could be started, one way or the other, should be not less than 50 000 men,” Kabila said.
He said he believed the renewed mandate was ”necessary, but we must keep our objectives in mind.”
”We’re not just going to keep on adjusting the mandate each and every year, each and every six months. What for?”
He said that if the UN mandate could not deploy sufficient forces to bring peace ”then I should say that it’s a waste of time, a waste of money. Money that’s needed to feed the people. We could use that money otherwise.”
Kabila was speaking after agreeing in talks with the roving US Ambassador on War Crimes Issues, Pierre-Richard Prosper, to support a US initiative to hunt down key Rwandese war crimes suspects at large in the DRC.
Prosper said the US would ”launch an aggressive campaign” to hunt down approximately 15 suspects who Washington believes play a key leadership role in funding, fuelling and commanding conflict in the Great Lakes region.
”We’re prepared to be as aggressive as possible,” in bringing the suspects to justice, said Prosper.
The US is offering rewards of up to $5-million for information leading to the arrest of suspects.
The US official refused to divulge details of the unit which would ”aggressively pursue” the suspects, at least eight of whom are believed to be living in the DRC.
”I don’t want to get into details of the team. It’s a partnership approach and I have to study the issue and see what the composition should look like.”
The men are key suspects in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide and form part of the Interahamwe militia group moving between Rwanda and the DRC.
”We believe that these individuals are fuelling the war and I asked the president if we could work together to seek out these individuals and bring them to justice, believing this would be a key element that would return peace and security to his country,”
Prosper said.
”But the problem is greater in that we need to ensure that this leads to Rwanda withdrawing from the Congo, and that we need to address also the question of the abuses that have occurred in the Congo to the civilian population over the years.”
Kabila said the indictees could be hunted down ”once foreign forces, who are attacking us, who are occupying us, retreat.”
”I told the ambassador, ‘we are in a hurry’.” –Sapa-AFP