Kigali closes its border with Congo

Rwanda announced on Sunday that it had closed its border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), following accusations that its forces supported dissident Congolese soldiers in the capture of the eastern town of Bukavu, in South Kivu Province. In a statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Rwandan government said its border with the DRC would remain closed until the UN and the African Union (AU) set up a verification mechanism to "expeditiously investigate" the allegations made last week by the Congolese President Joseph Kabila. Kabila made the claim in response to the fighting which broke out on 26 May in Bukavu, culminating in the seizure of the town on Wednesday by dissident army soldiers led by Gen Laurent Nkunda and Col Jules Mutebutsi. Both soldiers were formerly of the Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie-Goma, a dissident group that once controlled the area. The Rwandan government said the border closure was to "allow those concerned to verify and arrest or otherwise deal with members of Rwanda’s armed forces allegedly present on the territory of the DRC". It added that despite the gravity of Kabila's accusations, the international community had failed to establish an independent and credible verification mechanism to establish the facts. "It is most dismaying to note that MONUC [the UN Mission in the DRC] has not, up to this time, cleared air on the intent by the government of the DRC to go to war against Rwanda, which we strongly believe is a false pretext of, and wrongly premised on, the so-called involvement of Rwandan troops in Bukavu saga," the government said. Rwanda said it would, with the close cooperation of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, only open the border to refugees fleeing violence in eastern Congo or those voluntarily returning home from Rwanda. The border closure could affect the humanitarian situation in eastern Congo, especially in the areas of Bukavu and Goma, already worsened by the renewed fighting. Much of the consumer goods destined for the two Congolese towns have been passing through Rwanda. Nkunda and Mutebutsi had said they had seized Bukavu to protect the minority Congolese Tutsi, known as Banyamulenge, from alleged persecution by the military commander assigned to the region by the Kinshasa government, Brig-Gen Mbuza Mabe. In the statement, Rwanda maintained that its troops were not involved in the fighting in Bukavu. "Rwanda reiterates the fact that her armed forces were not in any way involved in the fall of Bukavu. The officers and soldiers involved in the events in Bukavu were all Congolese and the government of the DRC is challenged to prove otherwise," it said.