Fears of War As Congo, Rwanda Tensions Escalate

Fears are growing of war between Congo and Rwanda after Congo sent thousands of troops to the border region adding to concerns that a fragile peace agreement signed in 1999 may start falling apart, with a consequent debilitating impact on the country’s diamond industry.

In addition, Congolese government forces are battling renegades led by Jules Mutebusi in the east of the country. Mutebusi is one of two renegade army officers who led rebellious soldiers into the eastern town of Bukavu earlier this month. Congo President Joseph Kabila is accusing Rwanda of being the rebels’ paymaster.

Up to 10,000 Congolese soldiers have been flown east in a rapid build-up of forces, as tensions escalate between the two neighbors, who supposedly reached a deal last year.

Congo said the deployment was an effort to secure a volatile region rather than a warning to its old enemy. Rwanda sees the military build-up differently, however, saying it is the prelude to an invasion and, ominously, has vowed not to “sit back and watch developments”.

Ironically, it is Rwanda that has done the invading in the past - in 1996 and 1998 – in a hunt for Hutu extremists implicated in the 1994 genocide.

The second invasion triggered a five-year war that sucked in six countries in the region and led to the deaths of more than three million people. It ended in a South African-brokered peace deal that is now in danger of falling apart.

Under the peace deal, Kabila has shared power with former rebels in an cumbersome unity government charged with rebuilding a devastated country and bringing former enemies into a single army before elections next year.

The current crisis started earlier this month when former rebel leaders who were supposed to be part of the new army seized Bukavu using the excuse of protecting Congolese Tutsis from "ethnic cleansing".

Tensions have also been swelled by offers of military aid to Congo by Angola and Tanzania, and indications from Uganda and Zimbabwe that they would get involved if war broke out.

President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa yesterday (Monday) warned about the prospect of a "potentially catastrophic war", while US Secretary of State Colin Powell has sent diplomats to the area to deliver messages of restraint to Kabila and Rwanda's President Paul Kagame.