The United States tells Rwanda and Congo they must 'walk back from the brink of war'
World
The United States tells Rwanda and Congo they must ‘walk back from the brink of war’
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United States told Rwanda and Congo on Tuesday that they “must walk back from the brink of war,” the sharpest warning yet of a looming conflict between the African neighbors.
U.S. deputy ambassador Robert Wood delivered the warning at an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council called by France as violence has worsened in Congo’s mineral-rich east which borders Rwanda.
Wood said Rwanda and Congo, along with “regional actors,” should immediately resume diplomatic talks. “These regional diplomatic efforts, not military conflict, are the only path toward a negotiated solution and sustainable peace,” he stressed.
The U.S. warning follows the Rwandan Foreign Ministry’s rejection on Monday of U.S. calls for the withdrawal of its troops and surface-to-air missile systems from eastern Congo.
The U.S. State Department on Saturday also criticized the worsening violence caused by M23, a “Rwanda-backed” armed group.
The Rwanda ministry’s statement said its troops are defending Rwandan territory as Congo carries out a “dramatic military build-up” near the border.
The ministry spoke of threats to Rwandan national security stemming from the presence in Congo of an armed group whose members include alleged perpetrators of the 1994 genocide in which more than 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutus who tried to protect them were killed.
The rebel group, known by its initials FDLR, “is fully integrated into” the Congolese army, the statement said. Although Rwanda has long cited a threat posed by FLDR, authorities there had never admitted to a military presence in eastern Congo.
Congolese authorities accuse the central African country of actively supporting M23.
Congo’s U.N. Ambassador Zenon Ngay Mukongo urged the Security Council to demand that Rwanda withdraw its troops from the country without pre-conditions, and halt all support for M23.
He accused Rwanda’s army of illegally occupying part of the eastern province of North Kivu, and of providing support to M23 to destabilize Congo and “to pillage our riches, our wealth in ore and minerals” in the east.
Mukongo told the council that no attack by the FDLR from Congolese territory has been recorded against Rwanda for more than two decades. As for Rwanda’s fears of genocide, he said its minority Tutsis hold power over the majority Hutus, and that will never happen in Congo which he said has hundreds of tribes, “and we live together.”
