The United Nations mission (Monuc) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) said on Saturday that Rwandan troops have ”illegally” crossed the border into the vast former Zaire.
”Monuc noted the presence on April 21 of Rwandan troops … with the FDR [Rwandan Defence Forces] insignia in the Bunagana sector on DRC territory, where a Rwandan officer asked a Monuc patrol to withdraw,” the statement said.
It called the presence of Rwandan or any other foreign military group in the DRC ”illegal”, and denounced ”the restrictions imposed on the freedom of movement of its [UN] troops throughout DRC territory”.
The statement followed a statement from Kinshasa that Monuc forces had captured 400 Rwandan soldiers on DRC territory, and amid reports that Kigali has beefed up security on its border with DRC, following clashes with Rwandan Hutu rebels based there since Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.
”Security has been strengthened, especially in the northwest [of Rwanda] and in Nyungwe forest” further south, near Burundi, a European diplomat in Kigali said on Friday.
”This makes sense because the FDLR [the rebel Rwandan Democratic Liberation Forces, blamed for the genocide] have moved towards the Rwandan border,” he added.
”Troop movements have been observed along the Rwandan side of the border, as if Rwanda were preparing an attack on two fronts,” said a UN source in the DRC’s Sud-Kivu province.
A source close to the DRC presidency said Friday that Monuc had ”captured” 400 soldiers from the Rwandan army in Bunagana, 6km from the Rwandan and Ugandan borders, in Nord-Kivu province.
The same source said that the UN special envoy for DRC, William Lacy Swing, had on Friday written to to the Rwandan and DRC foreign ministers about an alleged offensive launched by the FDLR near the Rwandan border and the reported presence of Rwandan troops in the DRC.
Earlier this week, Monuc stepped up patrols in the DRC’s eastern Kivu provinces following reported FDLR ”incursions” into Rwandan territory.
Although the Rwandan army officially has denied it was preparing attacks that could take it on to DRC soil, a Rwandan military source said ”there is certainly a concentration of forces along the border because according to our information the FDLR are preparing attacks on two fronts, north and south”.
The presence of the FDLR just across the border prompted Rwanda to deploy troops in the vast former Zaire in 1998, the year the DRC plunged into a war that ended last year, with a toll of about 2,5-million lives.
Rwanda also sponsored a DRC rebel group opposed to Kinshasa, which harboured and supported the Rwandan Hutu forces.
After the devastating five-year war in the DRC that drew in troops from half a dozen African countries, Rwanda announced a total pull-out from the former Zaire in October 2002. — Sapa-AFP