Rwanda, Uganda tell U.N. envoys peace in Congo is not their problem <http://www.reuters.com/> Description: ReutersBy Michelle Nichols | Reuters
By Michelle Nichols
KIGALI/KAMPALA (Reuters) - The presidents of Rwanda and Uganda told U.N.
Security Council envoys on Monday that their countries were not responsible
for bringing peace to neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo's volatile
east, which has long been mired in conflict and is bristling with armed
groups.
Envoys from the 15-member council met with Rwandan President Paul Kagame in
Kigali and then President Yoweri Museveni in Kampala after spending two days
in Congo visiting the United Nations' largest peacekeeping operation.
Millions of people have been killed by violence, disease and hunger since
the 1990s as rebel groups have fought for control of eastern Congo's rich
deposits of gold, diamonds, copper, cobalt and uranium.
Britain's U.N. Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant said both Kagame and Museveni
described an 18-month rebellion by the M23 guerrilla group as just a symptom
and not a cause of Congo's problems, which were much more deep-seated in
issues such as a lack of governance.
"(They said) it was really up to (Congolese President Joseph) Kabila to
resolve those issues. The international community could still help, but it
wasn't the responsibility of Rwanda and it wasn't the responsibility of
Uganda," Lyall Grant told reporters.
"They felt that Kabila had made a lot of mistakes and that he didn't have
control of his own troops and that was the fundamental issue - not anything
else about cross-border interference," he said.
U.N. experts have accused Rwanda of supporting M23, which is led by ethnic
Tutus, a charge that Kigali has rejected. The roots of the rebellion in the
region lie in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, where Hutu troops killed 800,000
Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
Some Security Council envoys described Kagame as defensive during the
meeting. He told them that Rwanda, where Tutsis and Hutus have reconciled
after the genocide, should not be lectured on what was needed to bring peace
to eastern Congo.
"It's going to be the people and the countries in the region who determine
whether or not there is peace," U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
Samantha Power told reporters after the meeting with Kagame.
"The armed groups need to be eliminated and every country in the region
needs to use whatever leverage it has to get rid of those groups," said
Power. "That's the only hope the people in the region have."
'WE ARE NOT HAPPY'
During a visit by the ambassadors to the eastern Congolese city of Goma on
Sunday, U.N. officials said while M23 had captured global headlines, just as
great a threat was posed by the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of
Rwanda (FDLR) and the Islamist group Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).
M23 has accused the Congolese army of receiving military support from the
FDLR, an accusation Kinshasa rejects.
Civil society leaders in North Kivu, where Goma is the capital, told the
council envoys that the Congolese government controlled only about 25
percent of the province, while the rest was in the hands of dozens of armed
groups.
African leaders signed a U.N.-mediated regional accord in February aimed at
ending two decades of conflict in eastern Congo. Rwanda and Uganda both said
they were committed to implementing the pact, U.N. diplomats said.
Museveni said he had to deploy more troops on the Ugandan border with Congo
because of the threat posed by the ADF. The Ugandan government says the ADF
is allied to elements of Somalia's al Shabaab movement, an al Qaeda-linked
group.
Congolese forces, with the help of a new U.N. Intervention Brigade that has
a mandate to neutralize armed groups, successfully pushed M23 fighters away
from Goma - a city of one million people - in August. The military defeat
forced M23 to return to peace talks being brokered by the Ugandan
government.
During the meeting with Museveni, Lyall Grant said envoys were told "that
there was a real chance of reaching agreement in the next few days," but
diplomats were wary of that prediction because there were still outstanding
issues to be resolved.
The United Nations said on Saturday that a third of child soldiers who had
escaped from M23 were lured from Rwanda with promises of cash, jobs and
education.
The United States, which has called on Rwanda to drop its support for the
M23 rebels, stepped up pressure on Kigali last week by moving to block
military aid over the recruitment of M23 child soldiers in its territory.
"I don't expect you to hear me say that we are happy, we are not," said
Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo. "Rwanda does not tolerate
children being enrolled in any way near armed groups, not in our own army,
and that's Rwanda's position."
"Our belief is that once this crisis (in Congo) is resolved, once we get rid
of these armed groups then there will be no longer the issue of child
soldiers," she told reporters.
Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni and Dr. Kiiza Besigye Uganda is in anarchy"
Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni na Dk. Kiiza Besigye Uganda ni katika machafuko"
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