Rwanda News Agency/Agence Rwandaise d'Information (Kigali)
9 June 2008
Kigali — A delegation from the UN Security Council was this morning left stranded at Kigali airport when an American company demanded $20,000 (about Rwf 10million) for their jet to be refuelled, RNA can exclusively reveal.
Mr. Robert Masozera, the Rwanda Ministry of Foreign Affairs Communications Director confirmed the incident indicating that the delegation was "facilitated by the government of Rwanda" to continue their journey to Ivory Coast - the next leg of their Africa tour.
The Security Council ambassadors had been visiting eastern DR Congo during a trip to promote peacekeeping operations and other efforts to end some of the most intractable conflicts in Africa.
According to Mr. Masozera, the "plane that they (diplomats) were using broke down in Goma" (North Kivu provincial capital). He said the senior envoys came to Kigali by road as they "waited for another plane from the UN mission in Kinshasa".
However, Reuters also reports that the plane the envoys flew in to Kinshasa from Sudan was too big to land safely in Goma in eastern Congo since lava from a volcanic eruption a few years ago cut the runway short.
It can therefore be understood then that since their plane was too big, it was left in Kinshasa when they came to Goma. They used another smaller aircraft to Goma. So since their larger plane could not land in Goma, they decided to move to Kigali.
The envoys and journalists accompanying them travelled by bus across the border to Rwanda, where their plane was to pick them up, Mr. Saiki apparently said.
Meanwhile, a Qatari TV Al Jazeera journalist reporting from the aircraft, said an American fuel company which had lost its contract to provide fuel at Kigali airport had demanded payment in cash for the fuel.
The fuel company did not want to accept credit cards on cheques from the UN - notoriously slow at paying - but cash for the fuel, reporter John Terrett said.
So a spectacle ensued with of some of the senior diplomats in the world opening up their wallets to see if they could come up $20,000 in cash, according to him.
Al Jazeera says the stalemate lasted about an hour and a half before a senior Rwanda government official arrived to mediate a deal and apologise profusely to the UN delegation on behalf of the government.
The aircraft was then refuelled and cleared for its five and a half hour journey to the Ivory Coast.
Mr. Masozera from the Rwanda Foreign Affairs Ministry told RNA that the American company in question was Caltex. The firm also has a network of petrol stations in the country.
The official who helped the Delegation secure their travel, according to Mr. Masozera was Ambassador Joseph Mutaboba - Secretary General in the Ministry of Interior - a long time UN diplomat himself.
However, reports from Goma indicate that the Security Council delegation was forced to take a bus ride from there to Rwanda after a security guard accidentally shot a hole in their small plane they had used from Kinshasa.
"They were boarding the aircraft to come back to Kinshasa. U.N. security have to surrender their weapons on the plane. He (a guard) was doing a safety check and there was an accidental discharge," Reuters quotes Mr. Kemal Saiki, spokesman for the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo.
"The crew thought that something may have been damaged so they decided not to fly," Saiki said, speaking in Goma, Congo.
The head of the U.N. mission in Congo, Alan Doss, told reporters that an investigation would be undertaken.
Other eyewitnesses at the scene said the bullet went through the floor of the plane and touched a cable.
In Goma on Sunday, the French Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere - who is part of the delegation, told reporters that Rwandan rebels - the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) and other militias must disarm or the UN arms the DR Congo government to forcefully do it. (End)
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