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Two held over Rwandan massacres

Two Rwandan men wanted for their alleged role in the 1994 genocide have been arrested in France, police there have said.

Wenceslas Munyeshyaka, a Catholic priest, and Laurent
Bucyibaruta, an ex-civil servant, were held on warrants issued in
Tanzania last month.

The arrests have been welcomed by the Rwandan government, which has accused France of failing to cooperate fully.

More than 800,000 people died in 1994 massacre of Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

Warrants for the arrests had been issued by the United
Nations-backed International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), based
in Tanzania.

'Murder and rape'

The two suspects will now face possible extradition to Tanzania.

Father Munyeshyaka was arrested at Gisors, to the west of Paris, and Mr Bucyibaruta near Troyes, east of the capital.

Father Munyeshyaka, 49, is accused of murdering three
young Tutsis in his Holy Family parish in the capital Kigali, news
agency AFP reported.

He is also accused of raping four young Tutsi women
between April and June 1994 and calling for the extremist Hutu
Interahamwe militia to commit rape.

Mr Bucyibaruta has been accused of "direct and public incitement to commit genocide" by the ICTR.

Rwanda broke off diplomatic ties with Paris last year in a row over a French inquiry related to the 1994 genocide.

The investigating judge said Rwandan President Paul
Kagame was complicit in the assassination of former President Juvenal
Habyarimana in 1994, which sparked off the killings.

Mr Kagame has always accused Hutu extremists of killing
Habyarimana, a moderate Hutu, in order to provide a pretext for the
genocide.

The killings ended 100 days later when the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front took power.

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Congo miners 'tortured' in Angola

Congolese diamond miners who have been expelled from Angola say they were subjected to horrifying abuses by security forces.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) says people being treated
at their centres in Kamonia, southwest DR Congo were tortured and
sexually abused.

Head of mission Alain Decoux said they have received similar reports from five diamond mining sites in Angola.

But Finance Minister Jose Pedro de Morais has had denied the allegations.

Some 40,000 Congolese miners have arrived in the
provinces of Bandundu and Western Kasai in the Democratic Republic of
Congo since 2 April, following a crackdown by Angolan authorities.

An estimated 500,000 Congolese work illegally in
diamond mines in northern Angola, the United Nations says. This month's
expulsions have been the third and largest wave of forced repatriations
since December.

As they are expelled, miners and their families are
forced to cross the Tungila river into Congo, where some have drowned,
the UN said.

Human shields

The miners accused Angola's military of sealing off a
mine Kaninda (Lunda Norte) for four days - leaving those inside with no
food or water.

They told MSF officials that the Angolan military
separated families before subjecting them to an intrusive strip-search
for money and diamonds.

The Congolese miners allege that they were tortured
with fire and machetes and men were forced to perform sexual acts on
soldiers while women were raped.

"We have information from people from
at least five other diamond mining sites confirming that Kaninda is no
exception. What is being allowed to happen is unacceptable," said Mr
Decoux.

But Dr de Morais told the BBC the miners were exaggerating and had not been subjected to ill treatment.

"We are not putting these people in five star hotels.
They have made lots of money from illegal mining and they are simply
changing the story," he told the BBC Focus on Africa programme.

But MSF says many people have spoken of the existence of
prisons for miners at Kakanda and Lukapa that are surrounded by
anti-personnel mines to prevent escape.

The reports say Congolese civilians are being used as
human shields around several of the mines during clashes between
Angola's armed forces and the Tigers - ex-gendarmes originating from
the Katanga region of DR Congo who run sections of the mines - for
control of the valuable resource.

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Angola 'expels 25,000' to Congo

The Angolan authorities have sent some 25,000 people
back to the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to a UN-backed
radio station.

A local official in south-eastern DR Congo told the AFP
news agency that "thousands" of people had crossed the border in recent
days.

Some of those expelled say all their goods were stolen.

No reason has been given for the expulsions but Angola deported thousands of diamond miners in 2004.

Radio Okapi reports that local officials in the
Congolese provinces of Katanga, East and West Kasai, are unable to cope
with the influx.

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La communauté de l'Afrique de l'est s'élargit

BBCAfrique.com | Informations | La communauté de l'Afrique de l'est s'élargit

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