TANZANIA, SOUTH AFRICA, AND DR CONGO RESIST MILITARY MOBILIZATION IN CONGO'S EAST

Ann Garrison

a writer ...

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KPFA Weekend News, 12.28.2014

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Rwanda and Uganda are threatening to send troops across their borders with the Democratic Republic of the Congo yet again to, they say eliminate the Hutu refugee militia known as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or FDLR. Going after the FDLR has been Rwanda and Uganda's excuse for crossing into Congo for the past 18 years, since the outset of the FIrst Congo War in 1996. During those years Rwanda and Uganda have driven one Congolese president into exile, assassinated another, started wars which left millions of Congolese people and Rwandan refugees dead, and developed an international criminal network for smuggling illegally extracted minerals and timber resources out of Congo. KPFA's Ann Garrison spoke to Felicien Kanyamibwa, President of the National Democratic Coalition, which released a statement opposing military action against Rwandan refugees in DRC.

Rwandan refugees near Kisangani, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), 1997. More than a million Rwandans crossed into DRC fleeing General Paul Kagame's army in 1994. More, both Hutu and Tutsi, followed later to escape Kagame's repressive regime.