The UN reported Thursday that thousands of civilians had fled a battle zone in the eastern Congo near the Rwanda border, heightening fears that the Congo war, which has claimed as many as 3 million lives, may be erupting once more.
But the Rwandan government, which played a crucial role in the hostilities that began in 1998 and, officially at least, ended early last year, rejected what UN observers called "corroborating clues" that its troops had entered eastern Congo, defying a recent international peace agreement.
PHOTO: EPA
The UN mission in Congo told news services that it had aerial photographs and ground sightings indicating that Rwandan troops had crossed the border into Congo. The evidence included encounters with soldiers who appeared to carry Rwandan military gear and the sighting of a group of about 100 soldiers who appeared to be of Rwandan origin.
UN officials also were quoted as saying that thousands of civilians had fled the area around Goma, in eastern Congo, amid fierce fighting between Rwandan rebels and an unidentified force.
Richard Sezibera, an adviser to Rwanda's president, Paul Kagame, said at a news conference on Thursday that reports of Rwandan troops entering Congo were false.
He added, however, that "if it became necessary in the defense of Rwandan territory, her sovereignty and her people and in pursuit of genocidal forces in the territory of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda would be forced to enter."
A Rwandan incursion would be a major setback for international efforts to resolve the conflict in Congo, which in the past year has drawn in the military forces of at least seven neighboring nations on both sides.
Twice before, in 1996 and 1998, Rwanda's Tutsi-led government has sent troops into Congo for the stated purpose of routing Hutu rebels, at least some of whom are former Rwandan soldiers who participated in the massacre of 800,000 Rwandan Tutsi and moderate Hutu in 1994.
The UN has mounted an effort with Congolese and Rwandan officials to disarm the Hutu rebels, but Rwandan officials say the disarmament effort has moved too slowly and that the rebels frequently have attacked Rwandan territory.
Some private analysts say, however, that Rwanda wants to promote instability in the region to increase its control of the area's rich natural resources, which include diamonds, gold and coltan, a crucial ingredient in cell phone circuit boards.
The UN has accused Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi of stealing vast quantities of coltan from Congo, which holds some 80 percent of the world's known reserves of the mineral.
Sezibera, the Rwandan president's adviser, dismissed those accusations as part of what he said was a smear campaign by Western analysts and Congolese officials against the Rwandan government.
On Thursday the EU's foreign-policy representative, Javier Solana, warned Rwandan officials that an invasion of eastern Congo would violate both international principles and a Nov. 20 agreement among 14 of the region's nations to work toward peace in the troubled region.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS