U.N.: Congo Rebels Are Hampering Probe
Congolese rebels are preventing U.N. observers from investigating allegations from residents that Rwanda has sent troops back into the country’s restive east, a U.N. spokesman said Wednesday. Insurgents of the Congolese Rally for Democracy, supported by Rwanda during a five-year war that officially ended this year, turned U.N. officials away from a military camp and prevented them from speaking with fighters in Ruwangabo in North Kivu province, said Hamadoun Toure, U.N. spokesman in Congo. Rebels hampered the U.N. military observers, who were “verifying information relative to the presence of Rwandan troops on Congolese soil,” he said. Rwanda pulled its roughly 30,000 troops out of eastern Congo after a July 2002 accord. In return, Congo agreed to disarm and repatriate former Rwandan Hutu fighters who took part in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, which killed at least a half-million people. Full Story