KIGALI - Members of the diplomatic corps concur that government’s concerns over the alliance between the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) army and former Genocidal militias from Rwanda, among others, is indeed, a serious concern.

With some voicing disapproval of the alliance out rightly, the envoys said yesterday that they were transmitting reports on the matter to their respective countries.

"Personally and also as a representative of my country, I condemn what is going on there. It is very tragic,” said Dr. Marwa Mwita Matiko, Tanzania’s Ambassador, referring to Tuesday’s revelations.

"All the conventions have been flouted. They are not being respected and I think measures should be taken. I am sorry for what is happening,” he added.

This follows government’s exposure and condemnation Tuesday of the collusion between the DRC’s Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo (FARDC) and Rwanda’s former genocidal forces now regrouped under the Forces Democratique pour la Liberation de Rwanda (FDLR) in their war against rebels loyal to Laurent Nkunda in eastern DRC..

Rosemary Museminali, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Tuesday met diplomats and conveyed deep concerns over reports that FARDC is fighting alongside the Ex-FAR and  Interahamwe militia now regrouped under FDLR.

She also disclosed that people identified as Rwandans on Congolese territory were being arrested, beaten, tortured and even killed.

"We have taken note of the information provided by the Rwandan authorities and we are taking the information seriously,” said Ambassador David McRae, the EU’s Representative to Rwanda.

"We treat the government concerns seriously and Ambassador Van de Geer was here and gave an account of recent developments as seen in his perspective,” he added, further highlighting that there is a disengagement programme in operation which he said is working only in south Kivu and not in north Kivu.

Roland Van de Geer is the EU’s Special Representative for the Great Lakes Region.

Also expressing concern was South Africa’s ambassador, Ezra Mvuyisi Sigwela.

"It concerns me that they are working together when actually they should have been disarming them, the opposite is happening, it is a great concern. A concern about which I have to tell my principal at home because it is a dangerous situation,” he said, adding, "We need to raise our voice against it but of course it is more effective if we raise our voices together.”

Pointing to the need for immediate action, he said, "I am going to send something detailed. My principal – my President and my Minister of Foreign Affairs must know.”

Amb. Nicholas Cannon, the British envoy also acknowledged that the issues raised are of great concern and have been reported to London.

"Obviously, we listened to the briefing with government with keen attention and we have reported it to London,” he said, but added that more details were needed.

"This question will need to be looked into. The questions must be looked into and ascertained. Obviously, if the circumstances are as have been explained to us, the matter must be condemned,” he stressed, saying he couldn’t sufficiently comment on developments in the DRC without details.

Amb. Richard Kabonero of Uganda, like some others didn’t have reservations.

"We are very very supportive! We have similar concerns as far as the negative forces in the Congo are concerned,” he said, stressing that they had called on the DRC government to take action, to no avail.

Uganda has earlier sought approval from the DRC to redeploy troops into eastern Congo to hunt the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) which has committed atrocities in northern Uganda.

"We have transmitted Rwanda’s concerns to our government and we have a forum, the Tripartite Plus and in this, we have always talked about negative forces. We have transmitted this to government and we will follow up,”. Kabonero said. 

The Tripartite Plus Joint Commission is a regular gathering of foreign ministers from Rwanda, Uganda, DRC and Burundi, among other stakeholders, to tackle the issue of negative forces in the region.

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