Skip to main content /WORLD
CNN.com /WORLD
CNN TV
EDITIONS


Namibia seeks UN Congo inquiry



KINSHASA, Congo -- The Namibian president has urged the United Nations to investigate the deaths of 2.5 million Congolese by Ugandan and Rwandan troops.

President Sam Nujoma also told a visitng U.N Security Council delegation that they must urgently review the political and military situation in the country.

He based his charge on a report by the International Rescue Committee, which said as many as 3 million Congolese have died in conflict.

While he described the deaths of "genocide", the report did not use that word.

He condemned what he called the "strange silence of the international community, and in particular the Security Council" in not pointing out the killings.

"To make sure the genocide is stopped in Congo, [then] Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda must pull out their forces," he said.

AUDIO
TEST

CNN's Charlayne Hunter-Gault: U.N. mission to Congo faces difficulties to establish peace

581K/54 sec.
AIFF or WAV sound
 
  RESOURCES
Congo's cascading civil war: A primer
Counting the dead in Congo
 
  MESSAGE BOARD
 

He added that they must also observe the full implementation called for in the 1999 Lusaka peace accords.

U.N. Security Council ambassadors held one-on-one discussions with the leaders in Kinshasa on Saturday.

The U.N. team want troops from other African countries to leave Congo, Africa's third largest country, where a war has raged for the past two years.

The war began in August 1998, when Rwanda, Uganda and their Congolese rebel allies took up arms against Congo's then-President Laurent Kabila.

They accused him of harbouring armed groups that threatened their own security.

Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia joined the war in defence of Congo, pouring thousands of troops and military hardware into the fight in support of Kabila.

At its height, Chad and Burundi were in the war as well.

British Ambassador Sir Jeremy Greenstock, current president of the 15-member Security Council, said the mission would seek common ground among the Kinshasa allies on how to advance the peace process.

"The issue relates to interpretation of the (1999) Lusaka Peace Accords," Greenstock told Reuters news agency.

"Each party is trying to come up with its own interpretation, and I think it is up to us as the council to interpret the accords for them," he said.

The much-violated 1999 accord, negotiated in Lusaka, Zambia, appears to have gained momentum under Congolese President Joseph Kabila's leadership following the January assassination of his father Laurent.

"President Joseph Kabila has opened some windows and he told us he wanted to open them wider, even to tear down the walls," Levitte said after talks with Kabila on Friday.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, Nujoma, Jose Eduardo dos Santos of Angola and Kabila were due to hold formal talks with the Security Council team on Saturday afternoon.

The 12-member U.N. team, led by French ambassador to the United Nations, Jean-David Levitte, would seek agreement on the key issues of withdrawal of foreign troops, disarmament and an internal Congolese dialogue to plan the future of the vast central African nation, Reuters said.

Kabila and his allies agree on all three issues but say implementation should only start once Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda withdraw from Congo.

The three countries say a total withdrawal would only be possible once Hutu rebels and other exiles based in the Democratic Republic of Congo no longer pose a threat to their own security.

The Hutus are blamed for the 1994 slaughter in Rwanda of an estimated 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

Rebel factions backed by Rwanda and Uganda hold most of the north and east of the mineral-rich country. The government and its allies control the capital Kinshasa, the mineral-rich Katanga province and the diamond centre of Mbuji-Mayi.







RELATED STORIES:

RELATED SITE:
• United Nations

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window
External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.


 Search   

Back to the top