UN human rights office denies pressure from Ban to change Congo ‘genocide’ report
By APTuesday, August 31, 2010
UN denies Ban pressure to change Congo report
GENEVA — The U.N.’s human rights office says it hasn’t come under pressure from Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to alter a forthcoming report accusing the Rwandan army of committing possible genocide in Congo in the 1990s.
Spokesman Rupert Colville says media reports that Ban wants changes to a leaked draft text are “absolutely untrue.”
He says the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights discussed the report with U.N. officials in New York last week after the leak “complicated matters.”
Rwanda is threatening to pull its troops from U.N. peacekeeping missions if the report is published unchanged.
Colville told reporters unprompted Tuesday that “up to this point the secretary general has never put pressure on the High Commissioner to alter the text.”
