24 07 13 Reuters: U.S. tells Rwanda to stop support for M23 rebels in Congo

It is the first response
by Washington to recent M23 clashes with Congolese government forces near Goma,
the largest city in the DRC's mineral-rich eastern region, but stayed clear of
directly implicating Rwandan President Paul Kagame, a U.S. ally whose
poverty-fighting programs are often heralded by donors.

"We call upon Rwanda to
immediately end any support for the M23 (and) withdraw military personnel from
eastern DRC," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

The call comes two days
before U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry chairs a special session of the U.N.
Security Council on Africa's Great Lakes
region.

M23 began taking parts of
eastern Congo
early last year, accusing the government of failing to honor a 2009 peace deal.

A U.N. report in June
this year said the M23 recruited fighters in Rwanda with the aid of sympathetic
Rwandan army officers, while elements of the Congolese army have cooperated
with the Rwandan Hutu rebel group FDLR.

The report prompted the United States and European states to suspend
military assistance to Kigali.

Psaki said the latest
concerns over M23 follow credible evidence from Human Rights Watch that said
the rebels were to blame for executions, rapes and forcible recruitment of men
and boys while receiving support from Rwanda.

The rights group
acknowledged on Tuesday erroneous testimony in the report but said it stands by
its conclusions. A statement by the group said the report contained an error based
on the testimony of one of the sources it interviewed.

"It said the Rwandan
soldiers had served with the peacekeeping contingent in Somalia and Darfur.
In fact, Rwandan peacekeepers served in Darfur but not in Somalia,"
the statement said.

It said, however, that
more than 50 witnesses had confirmed the key findings of its report about
continuing Rwandan support for the M23.

Rwanda rejected the group's allegations,
saying that the inclusion of incorrect testimony undermined the report. Rwanda also
accused Human Rights Watch of paying for witness testimony, a charge the group
had denied.

It is not the first time
that the United States has
called on Rwanda
to stop supporting the M23 rebels. A year ago, the United
States made the same call after a U.N. investigation
implicated senior Kigali
officials in supporting M23.

The U.N. investigation
provided the strongest evidence yet that officials from Kagame's government
were providing military and logistical support to armed groups in Congo.

A 17,000-strong U.N.
force, known as MONUSCO, and Congo
troops have struggled in the past decade to stem a conflict involving dozens of
armed groups and complicated by national and ethnic rivalries. A 3,000-member
U.N. Intervention Brigade was recently deployed to fight and disarm rebels in
the east.