UN says no Rwandan troops are serving in its DR of Congo peacekeeping mission

Countering what it said was disinformation being anonymously spread, the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) today said there were no Rwandan soldiers serving with the UN in the country or anywhere else in the world.

Responding to the allegations which appeared in DRC newspapers published yesterday in the capital Kinshasa, the military chief of staff for the UN Organization Mission in the DRC (MONUC), Gen. Jean Francois Colot d'Escurie, told the Mission's Radio Okapi: "There are no Rwandan soldiers among the blue helmets of MONUC. There have never been and there never will be."

The list of countries contributing civilian staff and troops to MONUC had to be approved by the DRC Government and "there are no Rwandans in the entire personnel of MONUC, whether civilian or military. There aren't any in any UN mission at this time, either," he added.

It was thanks to MONUC's direct intervention and to the Security Council as intermediary that Rwanda had stopped threatening to mount incursions into the DRC, he said. MONUC had also repatriated thousands of Rwandan civilians and troops that it had found on Congolese soil.

The news reports were a shame to the journalism in certain media and an insult to the intelligence of their readers, General Colot said.