Congolese President Joseph Kabila pledged on Wednesday to use troops massing in eastern Congo to disarm and send home former Rwandan soldiers blamed for that country’s 1994 genocide.
Kabila’s promise appeared to be a conciliatory gesture toward neighboring Rwanda, where United States diplomats traveled on Wednesday in a bid to ease rising tensions and put an end to talk of renewed war between the two neighbours.
Rwanda has accused the Congo of beefing up forces in its east in recent weeks as a prelude an invasion of Rwanda, Congo’s chief foreign enemy during a 1998-2002 central African war in the Congo that drew in the armies of six countries.
”We are doing everything possible to make sure that the current developments in eastern (Congo) are solved peacefully,” Donald Yamamoto, the US State Department undersecretary for African affairs, said.
Yamamoto spoke following talks with Rwandan President Paul Kagame. He met with Congolese leaders in Kinshasa a day earlier.
Defense Minister Jean-Pierre Ondekane said on Wednesday that the Congo was deploying three to four brigades with a total of nearly 9 000 men to the east, which borders Rwanda.
Congo insists the deployment is aimed at fighting insurgents in lawless eastern regions of the vast country and integrating the army there.
”The military deployment in the east will reinforce the security of the civil population, restore state authority in this area of the state, and neutralise all armed groups that try to oppose or impede the transition process,” Kabila said in a declaration read on State television.
The Congolese troops will also work with the United Nations (UN) mission — and its 10 800 peacekeepers — in ”the process of disarmament, demobilization and repatriation… of the forces of the ex-Rwandan army” that remain in the Congo, said Kabila.
Kabila’s government this month has deployed what the UN estimates are 10 000 soldiers to the east, scene of armed clashes this month between government forces and commanders of a former rebel group backed by Rwanda during the war.
Rwanda accuses the Congolese government of allowing thousands of former Rwandan troops and other culprits in that country’s 1994 genocide to take sanctuary in eastern Congo.
More than 500 000 people, mostly minority Tutsis, were killed in the 1994 slaughter. Rwanda invaded the Congo in 1996 and 1998 on the grounds of hunting down the genocide’s perpetrators.
UN spokesperson Patricia Tome said more than 11 000 ex-combatants from Rwanda have already been disarmed and sent home, including thousands of former Rwandan combatants. But Rwanda says thousands remain in eastern Congo.
British envoy Chris Mullin was to meet on Wednesday with Kabila and head to Kigali on Thursday.
The five-year Congo war split resource-rich country and killed an estimated 3,3-million people, most through famine and disease.
A transitional government headed by Kabila and made up of government loyalists, former rebels and opposition figures was created in 2003 under peace deals ending the war. — Sapa-AP