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1 hour, 57 minutes ago |
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KIGALI (AFP) - Rwanda formally denied having deployed troops in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (news - web sites) (DRC) and said it was not an enemy of the neighbouring country.
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"All reported sightings of Rwandan troops in the DRC are false," presidential advisor on the Great Lakes region Richard Sezibera told a news conference in Kigali.
"If it became necessary in defense of Rwandan territorial integrity... Rwanda would be forced to enter the DRC," he said Thursday.
But, he added: "Rwanda is not an enemy of the DRC. Rwanda is not a threat to the DRC.
"Rwanda is a threat to the ex-FAR and the Interahamwe," he said, referring the former Rwandan soldiers and allied militia that carried out the 1994 genocide in Rwanda before fleeing to eastern DRC.
"Some sections of Congolese forces are in close collaboration with them," he alleged.
In recent days Rwanda has renewed threats to deal militarily with remnants of the Hutu forces that carried out the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and fled to eastern DRC when Tutsi rebels led by now President Paul Kagame took power in Kigali in July of that year.
On Wednesday, the UN peacekeeping mission in DRC, MONUC, said one of its teams had come across a group of about 100 soldiers thought to be Rwandan near the eastern DRC town of Rutshuru.
On Thursday, a senior UN official said thousands of civilians were fleeing the same area following clashes involving the Rwandan Hutu forces, but did not identify the other side involved in the fighting.
Sezibera said any action in DRC would "be limited in time, waiting for a solution from the international community."
Rwanda has repeatedly accused MONUC and the DRC army of failing in their obligation to disarm the Hutu rebels.
"They (Hutu rebels) are near and in some places very near (Rwanda). We know that they are moving because in the last three months they have carried out over 12 attacks on Rwandan territory and this is unacceptable," Sezibera said.
He added that Rwandan proposals to the international community and the Kinshasa government, such as giving MONUC a mandate to disarm the Hutu fighters by force, and seconding Rwandan forces to the DRC army "to deal with that problem," had been rejected.
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