By Sonia Rolley
(Reuters) – Rwanda, which diplomats say backs M23 fighters who seized Goma in Democratic Republic of Congo this week, called on Wednesday for a ceasefire across eastern Congo and for Congo to negotiate with the rebels while denying Rwandan troops were involved.
Rwandan Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe told Reuters by telephone that fighting will halt in Goma itself because it is now controlled by the rebels. People in Goma said looting and sporadic gunfire continued on Wednesday.
“But Rwanda supports that there be a ceasefire in the whole region (of eastern Congo) and that there be a dialogue, which we have been requesting for a long time between the DRC and M23,” he said.
The U.N., U.S., France, Britain and Congo say Rwanda backs M23 and Rwandan forces helped M23 fighters capture Goma, the biggest city in eastern Congo, on Monday.
Rwanda denies its forces have crossed into Congo and describes its own military’s actions as solely defensive.
Nduhungirehe did not comment on any steps Rwanda could or would take to ensure a ceasefire in eastern Congo.
On Wednesday, M23 rebels were moving south from Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, towards Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu province, in what appeared to be an attempt to expand their area of control.
Nduhungirehe said the loss of Goma weakened Congo’s President Felix Tshisekedi and his only option was to negotiate with the rebels.
“Now that Goma has fallen, there needs to be a way out, and this is the only remaining option,” Nduhungirehe said, claiming that Rwanda has always opposed a military solution.
Congo considers M23 a “terrorist group” and refuses to negotiate directly with it. Congo’s Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner has called on the U.N. Security Council to sanction Rwanda for its support of M23.
The rebels’ rapid advances through Congo’s mineral-rich east since the start of the year followed a breakdown in peace talks between Congo and Rwanda in mid-December.
As ethnic conflict between Hutus and Tutsis persists as one of the causes of fighting today, Rwanda claims that Rwandans who participated in the country’s 1994 genocide fled to Congo and the Congolese military has integrated or supported them.
(Reporting by Sonia Rolley in Paris; Writing by Bate Felix and Portia Crowe; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
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