Kigali – Rwandan rebels operating in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) ambushed and killed four Congolese soldiers in the latest upsurge of fighting in the giant country’s east, army officials said on Friday.

The exiled Hutu guerrillas attacked the troops on Thursday evening as their army unit was returning to its post at Kati village 19km from the eastern town of Goma, the army officers said.

The troops, former Rwandan-backed Congolese rebels now part of a new DRC army, had gone to the Congolese town of Masisi 200km to the west earlier in the week to participate in army operations against Rwandan rebels in that area.

The Hutu Interhamwe rebels, whose hardline leaders are implicated in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, have been fighting the Tutsi-led Rwandan government from bases in eastern DRC since fleeing to the neighbouring country following the massacres.

‘The latest fighting follows a spate of threats by Rwanda to send its troops back’
They also fought for Kinshasa against occupying Rwandan troops in a many-sided war which began in 1998 when Rwanda and Uganda invaded for the second time in two years to back rebels fighting Kinshasa. The conflict gradually subsided in 2003 after an estimated three million people were killed, mainly from war-related disease and hunger.

The latest fighting follows a spate of threats by Rwanda to send its troops back into eastern DRC if Kinshasa and the United Nations fail to stop an upsurge in activity by the rebels.

The first reported Interahamwe attack on Rwandan territory for several years on April 8 appalled the government of President Paul Kagame, which demands that United Nations peacekeepers forcibly disarm the exiled guerrilla force.

Fighting between the Congolese army and the Rwandan insurgents killed at least 77 rebels, soldiers and villagers and displaced thousands of civilians in the last week of April alone, United Nations officials in the region say.

A UN peacekeeping force known by its French acronym MONUC reported Rwandan troops entered DRC in violation of the UN-monitored peace process last month.

Rwanda denied the report. Rwanda, along with most other combatants, withdrew its troops in 2002. But Kigali has said it would send them back if it felt threatened by Hutu rebels.

One group of Interahamwe known as the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda, which says it is fighting for what it calls the oppressed Hutu majority inside the country, says Rwanda sent its troops back to Congo months ago to attack its positions.

Source: Independent Online (IOL)
URL: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=68&ar…/p>