BRIEFING BY CHAIRMAN OF INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION ON FLOW OF ARMS TO FORMER RWANDAN FORCES

Press Briefing

BRIEFING BY CHAIRMAN OF INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION ON FLOW OF ARMS TO FORMER RWANDAN FORCES

The situation in the Great Lakes region of Africa was heading towards a catastrophe of incalculable consequences, and the danger of a repeated occurrence on the scale of what had happened in Rwanda during 1994 could not be ruled out, the Chairman of the International Commission of Inquiry on the Flow of Arms to Former Rwandan Forces, Mahmoud Kassem, said today at a Headquarters press briefing.

As he introduced the final report of the Commission, which was reactivated by the Security Council in May after having finishing its original work last year, Ambassador Kassem said the 23 rebel groups in the region had steadily gained in strength since the 1994 incidents. "Rebel groups are aligning with governments, who are using them for their own purposes. That gives the rebel groups a form of legitimacy they did not have before. On a subregional scale, an outbreak of violence would be extremely contagious, leading to a situation even worse than Rwanda", the Ambassador said.

Expanding on the method of work of the Commission, Ambassador Kassem said the Commission was based in Nairobi and had operated from October 1995 to October 1996. After the change of government in Rwanda, the Commission had been on hold for over a year and had returned to work in May, issuing an interim report within three months and its final report just now. The Commission's mandate had been to investigate reports relating to the supply of arms and matériel to the former Rwandan government forces, in violation of the Security Council embargo imposed by the Council in 1994.

"The report calls for urgent, comprehensive and decisive measures on the part of the international community to avoid a repetition of the Rwandan tragedy at the subregional level", the Ambassador said. The dynamics in the area between the time of the Commission's first period of work and the one just completed had completely changed due to the new alliances in the region. Since August, the dynamics in the region had further changed, with racial and ethnic propaganda spreading contamination. "You can imagine", the Ambassador said. "In the Democratic Republic of the Congo alone, there are 400 ethnic groups that don't like each other. You can imagine the implications of the breadth of the killing and hatred."

The recommendations in the report had been cautious, the Ambassador said. They concerned both immediate measures involving responsibilities of neighbours and longer-term measures involving responsibilities of both the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and regional, as well as subregional, organizations, such as the Intergovernmental Authority for Development and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

Kassem Briefing - 2 - 23 November 1998

In response to a question on the source of the arms entering into the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ambassador Kassem said the Commission's mandate had called for the specific identification of those violating the embargo. Back in 1996, the Commission had identified various actors in the flow of arms. This time, it had been more difficult. More countries had become involved in the country's problems, some having intervened and some having been invited to help.

The governments, some of which did not share a common border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, were providing money, arms, military training and whatnot to the various rebel groups aligning with the governments, he continued. Four main countries were involved in helping the Democratic Republic of the Congo military. They were Angola, Zimbabwe, the Central African Republic and Chad, and they had been invited by President Laurent Kabila. The legality of their assistance was debatable, and there were also others involved in the fighting, directly or indirectly.

In response to an observation that a newly published book had accused the French of gun-running in Rwanda, the Ambassador said certain issues were matters of history. On further being pressed to name arms suppliers in the region, with speculations about Eastern Europe and other areas being offered, Ambassador Kassem said, "Conflict is an invitation for anyone in the arms trade to make money." In the Great Lakes conflicts, small arms were needed more than heavy arms, and, in part for that reason, naming a country did not mean the country was involved, but rather that individuals within it, or "non-State players" who made lots of money, were.

In addition, the Commission had found a link between the arms trade and the narcotics trade, Ambassador Kassem said. The trend in the region was that "narcotics were sold and arms were bought".

When asked to elaborate on the role of companies, Ambassador Kassem said it was an odd phenomenon that while companies were constantly named as players in the arms trade, any attempt to trace their activities yielded nothing. "We do know, however, that they have many gimmicks, such as planes leaving and returning empty, having been used for other purposes in between. Proving that is another matter entirely."

The most important conclusion in the report, Ambassador Kassem said, was that this time the international community and the Security Council had to take measures to avoid the subregional bloodshed that would be worse than Rwanda had been. "Everyone must realize that, this time, there is no military solution", he said.

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