Robert Mukombozi
11 September 2007
Kigali — THE Rwandan government has reacted angrily to reports that it has troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo backing a rebel group led by renegade Congolese General Laurent Nkunda.
President Paul Kagame yesterday said at a press conference in Kigali that Rwanda does not have a single soldier on DRC soil.
"We have no troops in Congo at this time. We left Congo many years ago as the UN entered to deal with the problem of negative forces fighting us," he said.
At the weekend Uganda was also accused by Congo of deploying troops in certain areas of Mahagi in DRC's Eastern Province. But the army dismissed the claims as false.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and his Congolese counterpart Joseph Kabila on Saturday signed an agreement in Arusha to eject seven groups including the LRA and the Gen. Nkunda-led forces out of DRC.
They described the groups as "negative forces". Mr Kagame said the Kigali government has no interest in invading her neighbour and supporting any rebel group.
"We are linked to the problem of the existence of negative forces fighting us from the same area occupied by Nkunda. We shall not relent asking all stakeholders to address this problem," Gen. Kagame said in reference to the UN and the Congolese govt.
He said since many of Gen. Nkunda's rebels speak Kinyarwanda, some stakeholders confuse Rwandan invasion and the struggle of Kinyarwanda speaking Congolese for their rights.
Uganda and Rwanda invaded DRC, then Zaire in 1998 in pursuit of rebels fighting their governments but ended up clashing twice in the vast largely lawless central African country.
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