AfroAmerica Network
Kigali
12.25.00
The Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) is preparing a major offensive to take over Mbujimayi, a major city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
The Rwandan army has sent forty thousand soldiers to the DRC. Fresh troops arrived in Kivu and northern Katanga in recent weeks. The objective is to capture the Congolese city rich in minerals.
Informed sources in Kigali say that Rwandan military officials are not sure whether the Bush-Cheney Administration will provide this tiny country with military and diplomatic support it enjoyed during the Clinton-Gore Administration. In case the new U. S. Administration cuts off that support, they want to be able to use DRCs' natural resources to continue the war.
Some Kigali residents say that the RPA lost more than thirty military officers during the battle for the control of Pepa and Pweto. The Rwandan Ministry of Defense does not announce war casualties nor inform the relatives of the fallen soldiers. Wounded soldiers returning from the DRC told AfroAmerica Network that dead soldiers are buried in shallow graves on the front.
Rwandan President General Paul Kagame has repeatedly said the RPA is in the DRC to hunt down ex-FAR or former Rwandan government forces and interahamwe. Privately officials point out that the war in the DRC has four objectives: to loot Congolese natural resources, annex the Province of Kivu, get rid of Tutsi soldiers who belong to Kigeli V Ndahindurwa's clan, and get rid of former ex-FAR integrated into the RPA.
These sources suggest that President Kagame knows that the return of Rwandan soldiers fighting in the DRC will create insecurity in Rwanda and may even lead to a coup d'Etat. One source said: "We killed interahamwe when we invaded the DRC and destroyed refugee camps in 1996 and 1997. What Kagame wants is to remove Kabila from office and assert Rwanda's military power in the region. Interahamwe and ex-FAR are just a bogeyman. We killed them in the DRC and we killed those who return to Rwanda."
(c) AfroAmerica Network, December, 2000.
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