The US' Role In The DR Congo Conflict

Washington's Patronage Of Rwanda and Uganda Ensuring Further Conflict and Death In DR Congo

The US has dispatched a state department official to the region but has been careful to spare its allies, Rwanda and Uganda, anything beyond symbolic sanction - even though a UN report, released last week, concluded that the rebels have been backed by both neighbouring countries. 

The report also says that Rwanda helped recruit soldiers for Bosco Ntaganda, the M23 leader who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes. UN investigators interviewed rebel soldiers who said they were Rwandans and had been sent across the border to participate in the fighting. 

It also says traders in Rwanda are funding the conflict, with the money from tin, tungsten and tantalum smuggled across the border from mines in the eastern DR Congo.

[Paul Kagame] has also been accused of supporting conflict in DR Congo since the late 1990s. And there are accusations of human rights abuses inside Rwanda. Amnesty International has released reports detailing crackdowns on both journalists and political dissent.

Similarly Yoweri Museveni's Ugandan government has received US support, even after a US state department report accused the country of gross human rights violations. It has also been accused of destabilising its resource-rich neighbour to the west, DR Congo.