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Rwanda has accused Uganda of spreading rumours to get an excuse
to re-deploy its army in the DR Congo.
The Rwanda Defence Forces (RDF) spokesman Maj. Jill Rutaremara
said in a statement dated 14 June that the “allegations by Ugandan
security authorities that a Rwandan colonel and two People’s
Redemption Army (PRA) fighters were this week seen in Mongwallo
(eastern DRC) as a rebel force formerly backed by Rwanda captured
the airport was shamelessly empty”.
“If the UPDF wants to go back to the DRC, let them do so without
spreading false fabrications and using the false pretext of the RDF
presence in the DRC,” said the statement faxed to The Monitor
yesterday.
Maj. Rutaremara was reacting to a story titled “PRA Men Seen In
Congo” in the state-run New Vision of 14 June.
The story quoted Ugandan security sources.
But Maj. Rutaremara’s two-page statement said:
“The allegation that a Rwandan colonel was seen in Mongwallo is a
naked and shameless lie that can only serve to further discredit the
Ugandan security organs and personnel. Both MONUC and TPVM have
proved this tired allegation of the presence of RDF in Congo false.
The RDF challenges the Ugandan security sources to name the Rwandan
colonel,” the statement said.
In response, the UPDF spokesman Maj. Shaban Bantariza said that a
newspaper report is not an Ugandan government statement.
“It seems Rwanda cannot make a difference between a free press
and a press like theirs,” he said.
“If a Ugandan journalist gets information from anywhere and
publishes it, it doesn’t translate into a government statement.
“Maj. Rutaremara doesn’t know that the difference is that unlike
Rwanda, the press in Uganda is free. Here apart from government
having commercial interests, the New Vision says whatever they
want,” Maj. Bantariza said last evening.
He said that if Uganda wanted to re-enter DR Congo, it wouldn’t
have to give the RDF’s presence as an excuse.
“When we went to Congo, we went without using anybody as a
pretext. We pulled out at our own volition. If there is any reason
to go back, justified in self-defence, we shall not use Rwanda to go
back,” he said.
Uganda and Rwanda both sent troops to the DR Congo in 1998.
Their actions have since escalated the conflict mainly in eastern
DR Congo.
Both armies have since pulled out to pave way for an
international peace keeping force.
But Rwanda, which officially pulled out of Congo in October 2002,
has since been accused of fighting alongside RCD-Goma rebels –
accusations that were repeated last week after a local bishop said
that Rwandan military helicopters were involved in the fighting in
Butembo.
The United Nations Security Council ambassadors on Saturday
warned Rwanda against backing the UPC, another rebel faction that is
in violation of a cease-fire in the volatile Ituri region.
The Security Council ambassadors visited Rwanda as part of a tour
of central Africa in an attempt to end the conflict in DR Congo.
The ambassadors were scheduled to meet President Yoweri Museveni
last evening in
Entebbe. | 
