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Minister Denies Re-Entry of Rwandan Soldiers Into DRC

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
NEWS
December 23, 2002
Posted to the web December 23, 2002
Nairobi
The government of Rwanda has denied sending soldiers, posing as returning
refugees, to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) just as its troops were
officially pulling out of the country.
Speaking on Rwandan Radio on Saturday, Rwandan Foreign Minister Charles
Murigande also said that no Rwandan soldiers had set foot on DRC territory
since their official withdrawal. He denied his country's involvement in the
movement of the refugees to the DRC.
"The government of Rwanda was never involved in the repatriation of these
refugees," he said. "It never forcefully repatriated them. What I can say is
that it never opposed their repatriation, because it was their right to go back
to their country."
The US Committee for Refugees (USCR) reported on 16 December that, in
collaboration with the Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD-Goma),
the government had "misled, intimidated and forcibly returned" several thousand
Congolese refugees to "a dangerous area" of North Kivu in September and October
2002.
"According to sources interviewed by the USCR in Rwanda, the forcible
repatriation from Kiziba [refugee camp] was done, at least in part, to provide
cover for the return of demobilised Rwandan soldiers to eastern DRC," the
organisation said.
It reported that a further apparent intention of the repatriation effort had
been to develop an ethnic Tutsi constituency in eastern DRC from which, in
part, to recruit young men into militias.
The organisation said that international observers in Rwanda widely believed
that boats moving under cover of darkness across Lake Kivu from Rwanda to the
DRC had also transported troops, cattle, and military support materials.
Among the 9,500 supposed "refugees" reported by the Rwandan Ministry of Local
Administration and Social Affairs to have been repatriated to the DRC, were
Rwandan soldiers and ex-combatants in civilian clothes, Rwandan and Congolese
civilians laden with produce to sell in eastern DRC, and also Rwandan citizens,
USCR reported.
Between 6,000 and 7,000 of these, who were genuine refugees, were currently
living as internally displaced persons in Kichanga, far away from their homes
in Masisi and Rutshuru, and badly needed relief aid including food, clean water
and health care, the organisation added.
The Rwandan government has consistently denied the accusations of a forced
repatriation, which was also reported by the Office of the UN High Commissioner
for Refugees at the time.
Rwanda officially completed its withdrawal from the DRC on 5 October.
See previous story: http://www.irinnews.org/
report.asp?ReportID=30606&SelectRegion=Great_Lakes&SelectCountry=DRC-
RWANDA

   

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