08 10 13 AFP: Diplomats try to rally Rwanda support for DR Congo peace

 

 

The diplomatic
mission to the country came days after Rwanda was slapped with US
sanctions for allegedly backing ethnic-Tutsi Congolese rebels who
recruit child soldiers.

"It is
going to be the people and the country of the region who determine
whether or not there is peace," said US ambassador to the UN,
Samantha Power, after meeting with Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

"The armed
groups need to be eliminated, and every country in the region needs
to use whatever leverage it has."

The United
Nations accuses Rwanda of backing the M23 rebels
in neighbouring eastern DR Congo, a charge the country has adamantly
denied.

The M23 rebel
group was founded by former Tutsi rebels who were incorporated into
the Congolese army under a 2009 peace deal but who turned their guns
on their former comrades in 2012.

On Thursday,
Washington said it was invoking the 2008 Child Soldiers Protection
Act to end US financial and military assistance to Rwanda.

Power said
Kagame had reiterated his public commitment to peace efforts as well
as talks currently underway in Uganda, the next stop on the
diplomats' regional mission.

But she said
"we have seen that movie before" — where positive rhetoric
and diplomacy have failed to bring any lasting peace to the
chronically-unstable region.

Kagame's
government, also dominated by Tutsis, is accused of
backing M23 rebels
as part of a proxy war against Hutu rebels in the DRC and to seek
influence in the country's mineral-rich eastern Kivu region.

Kigali also
accuses Congolese troops, who are backed by a special United
Nations force with a beefed-up mandate
to fight the rebels, of failing to tackle the DR Congo-based
Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).

The FDLR
includes remnants of Hutu militia who carried out the 1994 genocide,
in which close to a million Tutsis were killed.

Power, however,
offered some reassurance to Kagame, saying the FDLR was not being let
off the hook.

"Right now
they are dealing with the problem of M23 because M23 has
been shelling civilians," she said of the UN
force's recent operations.

"But they
made clear they have every intention also to deal with" the
FDLR, she added.