The\u00a0U.S.\u00a0on Monday imposed sanctions \u200con the Rwanda Defence Force and top military officials over their role in ongoing fighting in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and called for their immediate withdrawal from the mineral-rich region.<\/p>\n
Rwanda\u00a0has long rejected allegations from Congo, the\u00a0United Nations and Western powers that \u200bit supports the AFC\/M23 rebel group, which staged a lightning offensive last year and now holds \u200bmore territory in eastern DRC than ever before.<\/p>\n
But the U.S. Treasury Department said on \u2060Monday that the rebels’ gains would have been impossible without Rwandan backing. The State Department said separately that \u200bRwanda’s support had enabled “horrific human rights abuses.”<\/p>\n
In an emailed statement to Reuters, Rwanda’s government said the sanctions unjustly \u200btargeted only one party to the peace process and “misrepresent the reality and distort the facts of the conflict.”<\/p>\n
The statement said Kigali was “fully committed to disengagement of its forces in tandem with the DRC implementing their obligations” under U.S.-led mediation, but accused Congo of \u200bfailing to keep promises such as ending support for militias.<\/p>\n
Congo’s government said it welcomed the sanctions, describing them \u200bas “a strong signal in support of respect” for its territorial integrity and sovereignty.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for AFC\/M23 did not immediately respond \u200cto a \u2060request for comment.<\/p>\n
The sanctioned Rwandan officials include army chief of staff Vincent Nyakarundi, as well as the chief of defence staff, the special operations force commander and the commander of the 5th Infantry Division, according to the Treasury Department.<\/p>\n
MEDIATION EFFORTS FAIL TO STOP FIGHTING<\/strong><\/p>\n Rwanda and Congo\u00a0signed a peace deal\u00a0in Washington in December as part \u200bof U.S. President\u00a0Donald Trump’s\u00a0push \u200bto broker peace in \u2060the region and attract billions of dollars in Western investment.<\/p>\n Just days after that ceremony, however, AFC\/M23 rebels entered the eastern Congo city of Uvira, near the Burundian border, \u200bin the war’s biggest escalation for months.<\/p>\n They later pulled out under U.S. pressure, \u200bthough the Treasury \u2060Department said on Monday that the rebels’ continued presence near Burundi’s border “carries the risk of escalating the conflict into a broader regional war.”<\/p>\n Fighting continues in eastern Congo on several fronts.<\/p>\n Over the weekend Congolese officials accused AFC\/M23 of launching\u00a0a drone \u2060attack\u00a0\u200bon the airport in the strategic city of Kisangani, hundreds of \u200bkilometres from any active front lines.<\/p>\n AFC\/M23 claimed responsibility for the attack late Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The\u00a0U.S.\u00a0on Monday imposed sanctions \u200con the Rwanda Defence Force and top military officials over their role in ongoing fighting in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and called for their immediate withdrawal from the mineral-rich region. Rwanda\u00a0has long rejected allegations from Congo, the\u00a0United Nations and Western powers that \u200bit supports the AFC\/M23 rebel group, which staged […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":20067,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":8,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,2362,3028,1129],"tags":[3016,140,4928],"class_list":["post-20066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-central-africa","category-featured","category-mining","category-security","tag-democratic-republic-of-congo-drc","tag-rwanda","tag-rwanda-defence-force"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20066"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20066\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20068,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20066\/revisions\/20068"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}