Congo News 15 Sept Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit source: congo-news@thor.cmp.ilstu.edu Mon Sep 15 23:48:09 1997 U.N. mission demands access to Congo interior 02:39 p.m Sep 15, 1997 Eastern By William Wallis KINSHASA, Sept 15 (Reuter) - A U.N. mission due to investigate allegations of mass killings in the former Zaire said on Monday it had formally demanded access to the interior after being restricted to the capital for three weeks. In a statement in Kinshasa, the Togolese chief of the mission, Atsu-Koffi Amega, said he had asked authorities for permission to travel to the northwestern town of Mbandaka on Wednesday. ``Today the investigating mission is entering its fourth week in the country, but it is still awaiting the authorisation to deploy to the field. Twice last week we had to cancel scheduled deployments,'' the statement said. ``We therefore formally requested the authorisation to go to Mbandaka, an area from which we have received serious allegations of human rights violations.'' Human rights groups allege that hundreds of Rwandan Hutu refugees were killed by President Laurent Kabila's rebel troops in Mbandaka on May 13 on their final advance to topple former dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, who died in Morocco last week. Amega added that he hoped to receive a response that would allow the 19-strong team of forensic scientists, human rights experts and jurists to fulfil the mandate they had been given by U.N. Secretary General, Kofi Annan. Diplomats and U.N. sources say the U.N. is reaching the end of its tether. Another negative response from Kabila's government, which has blocked the mission since shortly after its arrival in the country, could cause the U.N. to pull the team out altogether from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The sources said that Annan had himself asked the team to give the government Monday's deadline to authorise investigators to begin work. The U.S. envoy to the United Nations, Bill Richardson, said in a New York Times interview published on Monday that further blocking of the mission could have dramatic consequences on Kabila's government's ability to attract foreign aid and support. Several countries including the United States and European Union members have continued to link support to the government to its co-operation with the investigation. Contrary to the original mandate of the mission, Kabila has requested that the team confine its investigations to the east of the country, and to dates preceeding May 17, when he seized power from Mobutu after leading a seven-month rebellion. Human rights groups have alleged that Kabila's rebels and their Rwandan Tutsi allies carried out systematic genocide of Rwandan Hutus sheltering in camps in the path of their rebel sweep from the Rwanda border. The refugees were remnants of more than a million Rwandan Hutus who fled into the former eastern Zaire fearing reprisals for the genocide of minority Tutsis by Hutu militias and soldiers. Tutsis won a civil war in Rwanda that intensified after the genocide. Kabila denies that his forces targeted Hutu refugees, whose camps included armed former Rwandan soldiers allied to Mobutu's army to resist Kabila's Tutsi-led rebellion. His government has its own liaison committee to work actively alongside the mission as it carries out its probe. Members of the mission say the original mandate they brought with them had been agreed to by Kabila formerly, and there was no question of bowing to any of the new conditions. Kabila blocked a previous mission led by Chilean, Roberto Garreton in June, after it identified sites of at least 100 alleged mass killings of Hutu refugees and blamed the deaths on Kabila's troops and their Rwandan backers. EU urges cooperation with investigating mission 04:38 p.m Sep 15, 1997 Eastern BRUSSELS, Sept 15 (Reuter) - The European Union urged the authorities of the former Zaire on Monday to cooperate with a U.N mission set up to investigate allegations of mass killings there. EU foreign ministers made the call as the Togolese chief of the mission, Atsu-Koffi Amega, separately issued a statement in Kinshasa saying he had formally demanded access to the interior after being restricted to the capital for three weeks. ``The (EU) Council underlined the necessity of a cooperation by the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo with the investigating mission...'' the EU ministers said in a statement after a routine meeting, adding they would continue to monitor the situation. Human rights groups have alleged that the rebels of President Laurent Kabila and their Rwandans Tutsi allies carried out systematic genocide of Rwandan Hutus sheltering in camps in the path of their rebel sweep from the Rwanda border. Several countries including the United States and the EU have previously implied that aid for rebuilding the renamed Democratic Republic of the Congo depends in part on Kabila's cooperation with the massacre probe. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytaf-09.16.97-03:04:14-15985