The Congolese army should take fight to Hutu rebels, a vice-president says

Saying that the presence of armed foreign groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) represented a "catastrophe" for Congolese populations, one of Congo's four vice-presidents, Azarias Ruberwa, has said the Congolese army should lead the "hunt" against these groups. "This question [of the presence of foreign armed groups in eastern Congo] is first of all, a Congolese one," Ruberwa said on Thursday at a news conference in Brussels, Belgium, during a two-day visit to the country. "We have to settle it before elections, not because Rwanda demands it - because, otherwise, we will not be able to organise elections throughout the country." Elections are due in the Congo in June 2005, at the end of a two-year transitional period. Ruberwa said the Congolese army, with the support of the UN Mission in the DRC, known as MONUC, should go after the DRC-based Rwandan forces that have largely been blamed for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. At the same time, he said, the two countries should implement the cross-border Joint Verification Mechanism to verify allegations of Rwandan troops having invaded the DRC to flush out the Rwandan Hutu rebels. The implementation of the border security mechanism, he said, would "put some transparency in the relations between our two countries". He added that it was important to stop the source of arms supplies to these armed groups. "In order to make peace, we have to guarantee the Rwandans that they will not be attacked," Ruberwa said. "But the Rwandans have to give us the guarantee that they will not send troops to the DRC." In a reference to claims that Rwandan troops had crossed into the DRC, Ruberwa said, "It was not conceivable that troops from a country intervene in another country without its consent." Rwanda has, so far, denied any recent military action in the DRC. Ruberwa, who is also the leader of the former rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la démocratie (RCD-Goma), said "there was, so far, no consent from the government of DRC, even tacitly", authorising the Rwandan army to hunt Rwandan militiamen, known as Interahamwe, and former Rwandan army soldiers known as ex-FAR, on Congolese soil. However, he said such consent could be made possible: "Historically, there have been cases where one country give another its consent; for example in the form of joint patrols. But the decision is ours and we also have to take into account our public opinion." Regarding the Congolese army, Ruberwa said Belgium was "the only country that had helped us to implement the first integrated brigade. Without an integrated army, it will be almost impossible to hold elections". During his stay in Brussels, which followed a visit in London and Paris, Ruberwa held meetings with various Belgian ministers and visited the parliament. At the European level, he met the EU commissioner for development, Louis Michel, as well as the EU high representative for foreign policy, Javier Solana. At their meeting on Friday, Solana offered EU support for Congo's transitional process that is supposed to culminate with the elections, his spokesman, Cristina Gallach, said in Brussels. "The holding of these elections in accordance with the agreed timetable will allow for a better foundation to be laid for greater stability in the Republic of the Congo," Gallach said. "To attain this, the help of the international community is indispensable. But the determined participation of all the DRC's political leaders, especially in the rapid and effective measures necessary for legislative, economic and administrative reforms, is also essential." Ruberwa returned to Kinshasa on Saturday. [On the Net: DRC-RWANDA: Kigali, Kinshasa agree to border verification mechanism]