Thursday, September 9, 2010

Rwanda threatens UN over 'genocide' report on army

Amplify’d from www.bbc.co.uk
28 August 2010

Rwanda threatens UN over DR Congo 'genocide' report



Rwanda has threatened to withdraw co-operation with the UN if a draft report criticising its army is published.

Rwandan Hutu refugees wait at the Zairean (now DR Congo) border post of Goma - 22 August 1995

Kigali said it would reconsider its contributions to UN peacekeeping missions, dismissing claims in the UN report as "insane".

The document accuses Rwanda's Tutsi-led army of killing Hutus in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the 1990s - acts it says may amount to genocide.

Extremist Hutus killed an estimated 800,000 Tutsis in Rwanda during 1994.

But the UN draft report, which was leaked on Friday, says in the years following the genocide, the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan army went into neighbouring Zaire (now DR Congo) and killed tens of thousands of ethnic Hutus - including women, children and the elderly.

map

Rwanda contributes thousands of peacekeepers to the joint UN-African Union mission in the Sudanese region of Darfur, and the commander of the force is a Rwandan.

Analysts say the possible withdrawal of these troops would be a massive blow, especially as it comes at a time of increased violence in Darfur.

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