Rwanda: U.N. chief in Rwanda amid row over war crimes report
8th September 2010

By The CNN News  

(CNN) -- The U.N. chief is scheduled to meet with the Rwandan president on Wednesday following a dispute over a leaked U.N. report that accuses troops from the central African nation of violating human rights. 

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon arrived in the capital, Kigali, on Tuesday. He was accompanied by top officials, including his special envoy to Congo, Roger Meece, and U.N. peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy. 

Ban said he hopes to discuss the report's concerns with President Paul Kagame and other government officials. 

The report alleges that the Rwandan military and an allied rebel group massacred ethnic Hutus in neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo between 1993 and 2003 . 

"Tens of thousands of Hutu civilians were slaughtered with knives, bludgeoned with hammers and burned alive as the Rwandan army and the Allied Democratic Liberation Forces swept across Congo -- then called Zaire -- leading to the toppling of dictator Mobutu Sese Seko," the report says 

The draft report leaked late last month was commissioned by the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The United Nations has said the final report will be made public next month.

A defiant Rwanda called it malicious and ridiculous. 

"It is immoral and unacceptable that the United Nations, an organization that failed outright to prevent genocide in Rwanda and the subsequent refugees crisis that is the direct cause for so much suffering in Congo and Rwanda, now accuses the army that stopped the genocide of committing atrocities in the Democratic Republic of Congo," said Ben Rutsinga, a government spokesman. 

Rwanda said the report's allegations are based on questionable methodology and sourcing." 

"Given the gravity of its mission, the Mapping Team's failure to consult with Rwanda even though they found time to meet with over 200 [nongovernmental] representatives is shocking and shows complete disregard for fundamental fairness," Rutsinga said. 

More than 1 million Rwandans fled to neighboring eastern Congo when the Rwandan genocide ended in 1994 -- most of them Hutu. 

In 1996, Rwanda invaded Congo in pursuit of the genocide orchestrators, who were living amid hundreds of thousands of other refugees. 

The stated goal of Rwanda during that time was to end the refugee crisis in eastern Congo. But the United Nations report says that the Rwandan military did not discriminate between fugitives and refugees, nor did it discriminate by age or gender.  

It adds, "The majority of the victims were children, women, elderly people and the sick, who posed no threat to the attacking forces." 

A majority of the incidents indicate that the Hutus were targeted, the report says. 

"The numerous attacks against the Hutus in Zaire, who were not part of the refugees, seem to confirm that it was all Hutus, as such." 

Although independent researchers have documented the crimes against humanity committed by the Rwandan government, the United Nations report is the most official and forthcoming accusation made so far. 

Ban's visit comes a day after Kagame was sworn in for a second seven-year term.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/09/08/rwanda.un.violations/index.html#fbid=0hYLh4a6Aaq&wom=false 

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