ZAIRE-RWANDA: Arms Sales to Hutu Rebels Went On in 1996

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 8 1996 (IPS) - More than a dozen countries played a part in the re-arming of Rwandan rebels who were based in refugee camps in eastern Zaire until last week, a confidential U.N. report contends.

The report, prepared by a four-member commission led by Ambassador Mahmoud Kassem of Egypt, argues that countries ranging from South Africa to many Eastern European nations transported arms this year to the rebels, accused of genocidal massacres in 1994.

The ethnic Hutu rebels, formerly Rwanda’s government forces (RGF) until they were ousted and fled mainly to neighbouring Zaire and Tanzania, are forbidden under a U.N. arms embargo from receiving the weapons they have continued to receive, the commission warned.

The arms build-up by the rebels in eastern Zaire prompted the Rwandan government last week to aid the advances of Zaire’s Banyamulenge rebels, who seized the major refugee centres of Goma, Bukavu, and Uvira over the past two weeks. The RGF and Rwandan refugees have since fled deep into Zaire, as well as to neighbouring African countries.

“According to the commission’s informants, arms have continued to flow to the former Rwandan government forces, often from or through South Africa, Angola, Eastern Europe, and the former Yugoslavia, and Kinshasa, Zaire,” the report states.

“Rather than landing at the relatively large airports of Goma and Bukavu, as was reported during:he 1994-1995 period, these arms are now flown into small airstrips, possibly including Bunia near Lake Albert, some 300 kms north of Goma,” it adds.

Among the countries named in the report as possible suppliers of arms are such former RGF allies as Egypt and France, both of which supported former Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, an RGF leader who died in an unsolved 1994 plane crash that sparked the massacres. Perhaps one million Rwandans were killed, mainly by the RGF and Hutu militias, according to the United Nations.

An airplane en route from Bulgaria, with registration number UR76539, landed in Egypt carrying some 30 tonnes of arms this past June, the Kassem commission noted.

It then travelled to Kinshasa, the Zairean capital, where “the arms could have been destined for the former Rwandan government forces in violation of the U.N. arms embargo,” the report says. Egypt has not responded to the charges, it adds.

Similarly, France, a former RGF ally and strong supporter of ailing Zairean dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, may have dispatched a French national to meet with the RGF’s former chief of staff, Gen. Augustin Bizimungu, in the Zairean town of Mugunga recently. France denies the report, and says no French official has met any RGF representative.

Other countries also may have played a role in the RGF’s re- arming, including Italy, the manufacturer of anti-personnel landmines used by the Rwandan forces based in Zaire; and the Czech Republic and Zambia, both of which are alleged to have supplied arms to Goma. The commission is still awaiting replies from most of the accused nations.

The main country suspected of aiding the rebels, however, is the RGF’s host, Zaire. Human Rights Watch accused Mobutu’s government of helping to ferry arms to the RGF in a 1995 report, and the Kassem commission added that the Zaireans have allowed Ndolo Airport at Kinshasa to serve as “a kind of hub for weapons shipments” for the Hutus.

“In view of the continuing allegations of Zairean involvement in the illegal supply of arms to the ex-RGF, the commission has repeatedly tried to obtain from the Zairean government information about these allegations and permission to resume its investigations in and around Goma,” the report says. “Its efforts have been fruitless.”

Burundian rebels based in eastern Zaire, also mainly Hutus who oppose that country’s Tutsi military regime, have also siphoned off some of the arms trade, although they are not prohibited from receiving arms by a U.N. embargo, the commission noted.

Both the Rwandan and Burundian groups were routed from the provinces of North and South Kivu by the Banyamulenge, ethnic Tutsi Zaireans who were threatened with expulsion by the provincial governors in September.

Zaire has blamed the attacks, which led to a speedy retreat by its armed forces, on Rwandan interference; Rwanda has claimed its only involvement was in self-defence following Zairean and RGF raids on its borders.

In its report, written as the fighting in North and South Kivu spread, the Kassem commission recommended that the United Nations send observers to the region to monitor arms traffic there. The U.N. Security Council is currently considering several options, including approval for an international peacekeeping force supported by, and including, France.