Rwanda threatens to withdraw peacekeepers over UN report implicating Rwanda in Congo genocide

Rwanda threatens to withdraw peacekeepers

JOHANNESBURG — Rwanda is threatening to withdraw its troops from U.N. peacekeeping operations if the world body publishes a report accusing Rwanda’s army of committing possible genocide in Congo in the 1990s.

The threat comes in a letter from the foreign affairs minister to the U.N. secretary-general that calls the report “fatally flawed” and “incredibly irresponsible.”

A leaked draft accuses Rwandan troops and Congolese rebel allies of slaughtering tens of thousands of Hutus in Congo. The attacks allegedly came two years after those same troops stopped Rwanda’s 1994 genocide that killed more than half a million Tutsis and some Hutus.

The letter says publishing the report “will force us to withdraw from Rwanda’s various commitments … especially in the area of peacekeeping.”