Congo Insists It's At War With Rwanda
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The East African Standard (Nairobi)
December 14, 2004
Posted to the web December 14, 2004
Kinshasa
Nairobi
Soldiers Trade Fire
Congo's government denied today that rival army factions were fighting each other in the mineral-rich east of the country and insisted the clashes were between Congolese and Rwandan forces.
"The Rwandans have sent soldiers to reinforce the positions they never really left in North Kivu (province)," Democratic Republic of Congo Information Minister Henri Mova Sakanyi said.
Local army commanders have said Congolese troop reinforcements have been fighting factions loyal to the Rwandan-backed RCD Goma former rebel group. Rwanda has repeatedly insisted its troops are not involved.
"There are no Rwandan forces in the Congo. If there are any clashes there it is a Congolese affair. They should sort it out themselves," Richard Sezibera, Rwanda's presidential envoy for the Great Lakes region, told Reuters in Kigali.
A five-year war in Congo, which drew in six neighbouring states, was officially declared over last year but the vast country remains fragile, particularly in the lawless east.
An international aid agency reported last week that the war had killed 3.8 million people, mostly from hunger and disease.
"The Congolese army has been fighting the Rwandan army which was sent into Congo to reawaken the sleeper cells of the rebels they used to support," Sakanyi said. "It is not a question of a mutiny."
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Fighting in the past two days has centred around the town of Kanyabayonga, some 180 km (110 miles) north of Goma, the capital of North Kivu.
Last month Rwanda threatened to send troops into its much larger neighbour to hunt down Rwandan Hutu rebels it accuses of cross-border raids and involvement in its 1994 genocide.
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