A United Nations observer patrol encountered what it believed to be 100 Rwandan soldiers at a town in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). marking the first UN-reported sightings since Rwanda threatened to send its forces against Rwandan Hutu rebels sheltering here.
The UN Security Council set closed-door talks for Thursday on the crisis threatening to reawaken central Africa’s devastating five-year, six-nation war in the DRC, Africa’s third-largest nation.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame, in a letter also sent to African leaders, advised UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan that his country intended to carry out ”surgical strikes” against rebels in its larger, militarily weaker neighbour.
Kagame hoped Rwandan military operations in the DRC would be over in two weeks, according to the letter, which circulated among Western embassies on Wednesday. A Rwandan diplomat denied on Wednesday that his country had invaded, however.
Separately, the UN news agency quoted Uganda’s army spokesperson as saying that Uganda was deploying troops on the DRC’s eastern border to guard against Ugandan rebels there.
”We have made precautionary deployment, especially in areas we think are possible crossing points for some negative elements,” Uganda army spokesperson Major Shaban Bantariza told the UN news agency.
Uganda and Rwanda were allies in a 1998 invasion that sparked war in the DRC.
Saying they were going after Rwandan and Ugandan rebels hiding in the lawless east DRC, the two countries sent in thousands of troops, while Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia’s forces entered the conflict on the government side.
Peace deals by 2002 saw the official withdrawal of foreign armies, deployment of what is building to a 16 000-strong UN peace force, and creation of a power-sharing government meant to lead the DRC to 2005 elections.
Since last week Kagame has threatened to send his forces back into east DRC, saying a five-month-old UN-led disarmament campaign had so far failed to neutralise an estimated 10 000 Rwandan Hutu rebels hiding in the remote hills and forests here.
The rebels include culprits in the 1994 genocide of more than a half-million minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda.
The DRC says Rwanda itself failed to eliminate the Rwanda Hutu rebels when it controlled the east DRC during the 1998-2002 war, and accuses Rwanda of seeking excuses to reoccupy its resource-rich east.
In Kinshasa, the DRC’s capital, UN spokesperson Patricia Tome said on Wednesday the UN mission in the DRC was ”astonished” at Rwanda’s threat, saying it came at a time when authorities hoped to be able to speed up the UN-led disarmament effort.
The UN press agency quoted Bantzaria as saying the DRC government’s hold on the vast east had improved markedly, leaving Ugandan rebels there on the run and looking for new hiding places.
On Wednesday, UN officials reported that UN observers had encountered what they believed to be 100 Rwandan soldiers at the town of Rutshuru, a few kilometres inside the DRC.
The 100 troops withdrew back toward Rwanda after Tuesday’s encounter, M’Hand Ladjouzi, the head of the UN mission in the largest eastern city of Goma, said.
The DRC asked the UN Security Council for an emergency session to condemn Rwanda’s threat and to impose sanctions against Kagame.
In Kigali, Rwanda’s capital, Rwandan regional diplomat Richard Sezibera dismissed the accusations.
Any UN Security Council meeting should be on the issue of Rwandan Hutu rebels ”rather than the DRC invasion — because we have not invaded,” Sezibera said.
He declined to discuss reports by the UN patrol and other UN and Congolese officials of sightings of Rwandan troops in the DRC, saying, ”I don’t talk about rumours.”
A US African envoy, Don Yamamoto, was to travel to the region on Thursday. – Sapa-AP