Peace-making in 'tinderbox' region

By David Loyn
International development correspondent, BBC News, Kigali

Lord Mark Malloch Brown warned of "ethnic conflagration" in DR Congo

When I last came to the site of Rwanda's genocide memorial six years ago, the building had only just been put up on top of a hill.

At the bottom of the red-earthed slope below were low sheds full to the ceiling with bones.

Now those bones have been laid to rest in mass graves beneath stone slabs built in wide steps down the tree and shrub-covered slope. Flowers grow well here.

Parties of people come and pray quietly as they remember those killed in 1994 when planned mass killing came to Rwanda.

Britain's Minister for Africa Lord Mark Malloch Brown worked at the UN then. He was in a reflective mood about the price of diplomatic failure as he came out of the museum.

There, photographs and personal effects of the dead are exhibited along with films and displays that tell how both international diplomacy and UN soldiers failed to stop the killing.

"It behoves anyone involved in international diplomacy to be reminded again of the costs of diplomatic failure," he said. "You just cannot let these situations escalate out of control."

He said there was a danger of "ethnic conflagration" in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, but said the current war was not exactly the same as the crisis in Rwanda in 1994.

There was no concerted plan to destroy a whole section of the population, he said, but rather a series of fights involving many different militias, worsened by criminal activity around gold and tin mines.

Rwandan role

On the last leg of his peace mission to the region, Lord Malloch Brown met Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who is believed to have influence over the CNDP, the Tutsi rebel militia who have taken most ground in the recent fighting.

Mr Kagame vehemently denied the claims that he could issue orders to this force, but agreed to help in any way he could to ease tension in eastern DR Congo, including persuading the CNDP to continue to adhere to a ceasefire agreed last weekend.

The arrest of Rose Kabuye has angered top Rwandan officials

But Rwanda's international focus has been distracted by the arrest of Mr Kagame's chief of protocol, Rose Kabuye, who is facing war crimes charges in France after being extradited from Germany.

Her cause has become a national campaign, with sellers doing brisk business in the white roses that many public figures now wear to show their support for her cause.

The French indictment names other senior figures in the government, including Mr Kagame himself, in connection with alleged war crimes.

The Rwandan government sees this as politically motivated, claiming that France has never forgiven Mr Kagame's Tutsi-led army for taking power after the genocide.

Rwandan Foreign Minister Rosemary Museminali told the BBC that the indictments "are undermining our actions and our political work".

She said it was up to the government of DR Congo to make a move to end the war in the east, by finally taking action to disarm and hand over those responsible for the killings in 1994 - Hutu militias who are still at large in eastern Congo.

'Tinderbox'

Lord Malloch Brown called the presence of these militias the "cancer" in the region that has mutated into corruption and criminality in battles for control of its huge mineral wealth.

He believes that both Mr Kagame in Rwanda and President Joseph Kabila in DR Congo now see more advantage in stability and peace than in conflict, but that navigating that peace process through the rocks is proving a difficult business.

Army troops and several militia groups are fighting in DR Congo

He said the region was like "a tinderbox that could ignite any time".

The Congolese government army is weak and fractured, and some battalions in the east owe more allegiance to regional warlords than to Mr Kabila.

There are many defectors from the government army who are even allied with the Hutu rebel gangs, the FDLR. Other local militias, the Mai Mai, have been hired by businesses to protect them, bringing even more men with guns on to the streets.

The UN vote to send 3,000 extra peacekeepers to reinforce what is already the world's largest UN peacekeeping force should reduce some of the political pressure on the UK government from aid organisations, who have been urging Britain to send its own troops to protect civilians.

They say that people are dying needlessly because there is not enough aid and it is hard to distribute in this complex, fluid and fast-moving war.

Major British aid agencies have now come together to launch a joint Disasters Emergency Committee appeal to help the people of eastern DR Congo.