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The Monitor (Kampala)
November 18, 2003
Posted to the web November 18, 2003
Frank Nyakairu & Agencies
Kampala
Rwanda and Uganda have until August this year been arming different militia groups in the DR Congo.
A UN report says this has prolonged the fighting in the northeast of the country.
The confidential document, a copy of which was leaked to AFP in Kigali, was sent to the United Nations Security Council on October 30.
It is part of a report by UN experts on the illegal exploitation of natural resources in DR Congo.
The arms deliveries continued, according to the UN, despite proclaimed "ceasefires" between the DR Congo, Uganda and Rwanda in 2002 and 2003.
The UN report accuses Uganda of having provided arms to at least two militia groups in Ituri, to protect its commercial interests. Ugandan officials dismissed this accusation.
"Since September [2002], when we signed an agreement between Uganda, Rwanda and Kinshasa, we have never armed anybody because we are in support of the political dispensation in Kinshasa," the Ugandan army spokesman Maj. Shaban Bantariza told The Monitor at the weekend.
The UN also accuses Rwanda of delivering weapons to the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC), an armed group in the Ituri province initially supported by Uganda.
Rwanda's goal is to "keep control of the Kivu provinces" in the east of the country on the border with Rwanda and "perhaps [to monitor] Ituri" in the northeast on the border with Uganda, the UN experts said.
But the Rwandan foreign minister, Dr Charles Murigande, also dismissed the report.
"Rwanda has never trained or armed UPC. Those are just lies," Murigande told The Monitor.
Ugandan Defence Minister Amama Mabazi told Parliament early this year that a neighbouring country was arming the UPC.
