U.S. tells Rwanda to immediately end support for M23 rebels | Reuters

WASHINGTON | Tue Jul 23, 2013 3:06pm EDT
 

(Reuters) - The United States on Tuesday called on Rwanda to end support for M23 rebels in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, saying there was evidence Rwandan military officials were involved.

"We call upon Rwanda to immediately end any support for the M23 (and) withdraw military personnel from eastern DRC," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

She declined to say whether Rwandan President Paul Kagame was implicated. "I wasn't speaking to Kagame himself," she added.

The call comes two days before U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry leads a special session of the United Nations Security Council on Africa's Great Lakes region.

FULL ARTICLE HERE: U.S. tells Rwanda to immediately end support for M23 rebels | Reuters

Good neighbours? Rwanda’s strategies to defend its interests in Congo – By Kris Berwouts | African Arguments

Kris Berwouts (author)

Central Africa has been shaped by complex regional dynamics, through which local cleavages and national conflicts have spilled over national borders. Each country in the region has a complex internal situation and a violent recent history where local contradictions have become polarized and entangled with those of neighbouring countries.

Following the end of the Cold War and throughout the 1990s these regional dynamics developed into an avalanche of killing and destruction. During the two wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), (1996-1997 and 1998-2002) which followed the genocide in Rwanda, the Congo and particularly its eastern provinces became the battlefield of ‘Africa’s First World War’. The DRC’s natural resource wealth has been an important factor in fuelling conflict as warring factions competed for control of parallel networks for the illegal flow of resources onto international markets..............

FULL ARTICLE HERE: Good neighbours? Rwanda’s strategies to defend its interests in Congo – By Kris Berwouts | African Arguments