Don't ease military pressure on Congo rebels: UN envoy

UNITED NATIONS — The UN special envoy for the Democratic Republic of Congo warned Friday against easing military pressure on Rwandan Hutu rebels in eastern Congo despite reports of killings and rapes by government troops.

"Reducing the pressure now would give the FDLR (Hutu rebels of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda) time to regroup and rearm," Alan Doss told the UN Security Council after a Congolese army operation dubbed Kimia 2 was severely criticized by a UN rapporteur.

Doss said a suspension of the ongoing offensive "would be celebrated as a victory by the FDLR" and would undermine the resolve of the Congolese army and "paradoxically further weaken discipline."

Easing the pressure would also make it more difficult for Kinshasa "to impose state authority and prevent the re-emergence of other armed groups who might well draw the conclusion that attacks against civilians will force the government to give in to their demands," he added.

Thursday, Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extra-judicial executions, told a press conference in Kinshasa that Kimia 2 had been "catastrophic" in terms of human rights and been hampered "by a lack of planning, coordination and cooperation."

He said Congolese soldiers killed 50 Rwandan Hutus and abducted and raped around 40 women during an attack on refugee camps in eastern Congo last April.

"At Shalio in Nord-Kivu province, it seems that the DRC Armed Forces (FARDC) attacked a makeshift Rwandan refugee camp on April 26, 2009," Alston told reporters in Kinshasa.

He blamed the April 26 massacre on Congolese Hutu ex-rebels of the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) who have defected to the government side since January and have been integrated into the Congolese army.

Doss conceded that despite efforts by the FARDC and the UN mission in DRCongo (MONUC) to improve and extend protection of civilians, "it is obviously not possible to protect everyone, everywhere, all of the time in the Kivus (eastern Congo), an area the size of California with a population of eight million."

He noted that President Joseph Kabila had declared "zero tolerance" for acts of sexual violence against women and Kinshasa was now acting against "looting, corruption and undisciplined behavior in the armed forces."

Doss said that to reinforce that policy, the 17,000-strong MONUC "will withdraw support from battalions that show a blatant disregard for international humanitarian law."

The FDLR has been active in eastern DR Congo for 15 years. Some of its older members are accused of taking part in the 1994 genocide in neighbouring Rwanda, which targeted the Tutsi minority and claimed about 800,000 lives.

They later became embroiled in the regional war fought on DR Congo territory from 1998 until 2003, during which some of the FDLR battled alongside the FARDC regular army against Rwandan invaders. Then early this year, the tables again turned when Rwandan troops joined the FARDC in a joint military campaign against the FDLR.

That campaign, which ended in February, has been followed by Operation Kimia 2 since the end of March.