KIGALI: Rwanda accused the United Nations on Friday of trying to deflect attention from its own failures by leaking a draft report accusing Kigali of war crimes in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.
The report, a copy of which was obtained by AFP, says Rwandan Tutsi commanders and their rebel allies carried out systematic attacks on Hutus in the DR Congo from 1996 to 1997 that resembled the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
"The timing of the leak of this draft report is quite revealing," said a statement from Ben Rutsinga, an official in Rwanda`s Office of the Government Spokesperson.
"It appears the UN is attempting to divert international attention from its latest failure in the Great Lakes Region where recently hundreds of Congolese women were savagely raped under the watch of its peacekeeping force," said the statement, sent out by the presidency.
The statement added that the government of Rwanda regarded the leaked draft as "malicious, offensive and ridiculous."
The 600-page UN report by Canadian war crimes prosecutor Luc Cote is set to be officially released next month.
"I saw a pattern in the Congo that I`d seen in Rwanda," Cote told AFP in an interview, referring to the Rwandan genocide where Hutu extremists butchered an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
His probe did not list a death toll in DR Congo but found evidence suggesting tens of thousands of Hutus had been killed.
The 34-member UN team under Cote`s direction found evidence that the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) and their rebel allies at the time -- known as the AFDL -- used hoes, bayonets and axes to butcher Rwandan and Congolese Hutus, often rounding them up beforehand.
In many other cases, the victims were raped, burned alive or shot dead.
But the Rwandan government statement said it was "immoral and unacceptable that the UN, an organization that failed outright to prevent genocide in Rwanda and the subsequent refugees crisis... now accuses the army that stopped the genocide of committing atrocities in the DRC."
The statement further called the report "a dangerous and irresponsible document that... can only achieve instability in the Great Lakes Region".
DR Congo`s justice minister said the government had already sent its observations concerning the draft report to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
"The government will not make any official declaration until the High Commission formally releases the report, Luzolo Bambi told journalists in Kinshasa.
Bambi said the DR Congo government has long denounced the human rights violations committed on its territory, and has appealed to the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court to seek to have the crimes prosecuted.
BDST: 0953 HRS, August 28, 2010
