A confidential United Nations report has accused Rwanda, Uganda and elements within the new transitional government in the Democratic Republic of Congo of continuing to arm militias in the country to keep control of the rich diamond and gold fields.
The document, part of a longer report on the exploitation of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s mineral resources published in October, was sent privately to the security council because of its ”highly sensitive” information.
If the allegations are true they will sorely test the 10 000-strong UN military mission trying to bring order to the country. Last week, in his latest assessment of the mission’s task, Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, spoke of a ”vicious circle of lawlessness” and ”massive violations” of human rights continuing unabated.
The report is also likely to embarrass the British government, the biggest bilateral aid donor to both Uganda and Rwanda. The former international development minister, Clare Short, was a defender of Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame, despite criticism that UK aid was fuelling Rwanda’s intervention in Congo.
One of the most explosive allegations is that the veteran opposition politician Etienne Tshisekedi, who returned to the DRC in September after two years in exile in South Africa, is preparing a rebellion, with the support and advice of Rwanda, in the central province of Kasai Oriental.
Tshisekedi’s party, the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS), refused to join the transitional government in June after he was denied one of the four vice-presidencies. A month later, the report says, his 3 000-strong militia was supplied with weapons shipped from an unnamed sub-Saharan country through Rwanda and a group of 42 UDPS militiamen was sent to the same country for military training.
Some observers believe the report’s allegations against Tshisekedi may have been overtaken by events. After being excluded from the new government he allied himself with the Rwandan-backed rebel group Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD) and denounced the president, Joseph Kabila, as a new dictator. But he recently told a South African newspaper that he was preparing for the elections expected within two years with ”love and fraternity”.
The machinations of the Rwandan military ”are considered to be the most serious threat” to the government in Kinshasa, the report says. It alleges that Rwandan officers are providing training and arms for two other militia groups in the east, including the Congolese National Army (ANC), the military wing of the former rebel faction RCD-Goma, whose leader is now one of four vice-presidents in the government. Documents obtained by the panel of experts who produced the report show arms shipments to this militia up to August this year, in direct contravention of the July UN arms embargo on the eastern part of the country.
The report says that evidence from internal documents shows that money for the arms is raised through the sale of minerals owned by the Congo Holding Development Company, a mining and trading firm based in Goma, near the Rwandan border. The company was set up by Gertrude Kitembo, a senior member of RCD-Goma and now minister of telecommunications. In its previous report last year, the panel recommended financial sanctions against the company.
The other Rwandan-armed group, the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC), with 10 000 regulars in the north-east area of Ituri, is under direct control of the Rwandan army’s high command, the report says. Rwanda formally withdrew its troops from Congo last year.
Uganda, whose troops were pulled out in May, is accused of protecting its commercial interests through three proxy militias operating in the prosperous Ituri district.
In July a plane was intercepted at Beni airport, close to the Ugandan border, containing ammunition destined, according to militia passengers, for Commandant Jerome Kakawavu Bakonde, the leader of one of the factions, known as FAPC. The report says that the arms were to help FAPC to force Ashanti Goldfields, which controls the Mongbwala goldfield, to work with Ugandan officials, such as the chief of military intelligence, rather than authorities in Kinshasa.
Receipts obtained by the panel suggest that one of the militias is directly funded by the office of President Museveni. The president’s press secretary did not respond to an email setting out the claim. – Guardian Unlimited Â