Kinshasa says Rwanda hindering disarmament of Interahamwe, ex-FAR

The government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) accused Rwanda on Wednesday of seizing the village of Kasuo, some 30 km from Lubero, in the eastern North Kivu Province. The DRC minister-delegate for defence, Awan Irung, said at least 1,000 Rwandan troops had been occupying the village since Monday.

"Rwanda is thus preventing the ex-FAR [Rwandan former army] and Interahamwe [Rwandan Hutu militias] from turning themselves over to the DRC government to be disarmed, as called for in the Pretoria accord," Irung said.

Irung was referring to the agreement signed by presidents Joseph Kabila of the DRC and Paul Kagame of Rwanda on 30 July. Under the agreement, Kigali is to withdraw its troops from the DRC, while Kinshasa is to disarm and repatriate ex-FAR and Interahamwe soldiers - generally held to have been responsible for the 1994 genocide of some 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and politically moderate ethnic Hutus - to Rwanda.

Hamadoun Toure, the spokesman for the UN Mission in the DRC, known as MONUC, said its military observers had not yet arrived in the area to verify Kinshasa's claim.

However, MONUC and other independent sources have reported the reinforcement of Rwandan troops in eastern DRC for the past several weeks in pursuit of Banyamulenge [Congolese ethnic Tutsis] and Mayi-Mayi traditional militias fighting the Rwandan presence in the DRC.

Rwanda supports the rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD-Goma), which has been fighting Kinshasa since August 1998. Kigali has justified its presence in the DRC as a measure to prevent the ex-FAR and Interahamwe from attacking Rwanda from bases in the DRC.