Kampala contests DRC comments to Security Council

An asserton to the UN Security Council by the DRC that it was not responsible for the security concerns and “internal arguments” of neighbouring countries was a distortion of the situation in the Great Lakes region, according the Ugandan representative to the UN, David M Taliwaku. The DRC view gave the wrong impression because of what the DRC “has done and is doing” with [supporting] the armed groups from neighbouring countries who have gone into the DRC and used it as a base to cause “insecurity” for the neighbouring countries [Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi], the acting Ugandan Charge d’affaires to the UN said in a 14 March letter to the Security Council. Taliwaku also said the DRC was “not being honest” in a 24 February letter to the Council which maintained that the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the DRC [Roberto Garreton] had exonerated the Kinshasa government of human rights violations in the country. The Ugandan diplomat also said there was no evidence that the incidence of HIV/AIDS “has only increased in occupied provinces” of the DRC as a direct result of aggression against the country. Taliwaku also rejected that Uganda’s intervention in the Hema-Lendu inter-ethnic conflict in Ituri District, eastern DRC, was to cause or continue the fighting. It was, he said, an attempt “to stop inter-ethnic fighting, pacify the affected areas and unite the various groups in the DRC, historical rivalry between the Hema and Lendu notwithstanding.” Taliwaku also contested that Uganda had recruited and deported Congolese children from Bunia, eastern DRC, after an outbreak of ethnic fighting there. He said some 600 people - including 163 children subsequently identified by UNICEF in Kyankwanzi political education school in central Uganda, and handed over to the agency’s care - had been airlifted from Bunia following the outbreak of ethnic clashes “at the request of parents and Congolese authorities”.