SENIOR Congolese officials claim Rwandan troops have crossed into eastern Congo and are clashing with militias there. UN officials said they were investigating the unverified claims.
| "Pooh. If we don't see it with our own UN-issued eyes, then it didn't happen." |
| Reminds me of the Bud Light commercial from a few years back: "There I was ... there I was ... there I was ... ... in the Congo." |
The allegations came as Kagame told his country's parliament that Rwandan troops "might" already be in Congo, pursuing Rwandan rebels based there. Congo's government protested, while a Congolese Cabinet minister on the scene in the east, Mbusa Nyamwisi, said: "We are on a war footing". Speaking yesterday from the eastern town of Beni, he claimed there was fighting nearby - "We are being attacked by the Rwandan troops," he said.
| If the UN didn't see them, they're not there. Sorry. |
Lawless eastern Congo was the scene of the worst fighting in a devastating 1998-2002 central African war, and remains home to numerous, vying militias. The region is the site of frequent clashes, which residents frequently blame on Rwanda and its one-time Congolese rebels allies. Yesterday, local officials, Congolese commanders, priests and other community leaders told UN officials and journalists that Rwandan forces were in the area. Villagers reaching Beni told authorities that communities north of Goma, near Congo's border with Rwanda, had been attacked, with at least three villages burned, Nyamwisi said. The displaced reported 15 people killed at one village, Ikobo, he said. Nyamwisi claimed two brigades of Rwandan troops were fighting alongside former rebel forces that had been allied to Rwanda during the 1998-2002 war. He gave no evidence.
| Who the hell needs evidence when your citizens are decomposing? Or do they think he's lying? |
Richard Sezibera, a Rwandan special envoy to regional peace talks, denied the allegations today and said Rwandan intelligence reports indicated that the Rwandan rebels were marching toward Nyamwisi's stronghold in Beni and were responsible for the violence. "That is obviously false information, all the areas mentioned are occupied by ex-Far/Interahamwe," Sezibera said, using the catch-all name for the rebels. Sezibera said he was surprised that Nyamwisi didn't mention that he himself had fallen out with the rebels and they were threatening him.
| Okay. I take it back. Let the obfuscation continue while the women and children and granny ladies and grampaws are slaughtered. |
Congolese "intelligence services" also reported Rwandan troops north of Goma, the regional military commander, Colonel Etienne Bindu, said. Rwanda invaded Congo in 1996 and 1998 to pursue Rwandan Hutu forces responsible for Rwanda's 1994 genocide, when extremists from Rwanda's Hutu majority orchestrated the slaughter of more than 500,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The 1998 invasion sparked a five-year war that divided resource-rich Congo, drawing in the armies of six countries and killing an estimated 3.2 million people, most of them civilians who died of war-induced famine and disease.
| Slaughter, rape, maiming and looting. Another UN triumph. Let us know if it gets confirmed. |
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