UN Security Council puts sanctions on Congo rebels

UNITED NATIONS (AP) ? The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Tuesday to sanction the leaders of Congo's M23 rebel force, which hours earlier occupied the eastern Congolese city of Goma as U.N. peacekeepers stood by without resisting.

But it did not name two countries accused of supporting the Congo rebels: Rwanda and Uganda.

The council demanded that the M23 rebels withdraw from Goma, disarm and disband, and insisted on the restoration of the crumbing Congolese government authority in the country's turbulent East.

The resolution adopted imposes targeted sanctions, including a travel ban and assets freeze, on the M23 rebel group leadership. Individual nations are supposed to enforce the sanctions and report to the council.

The resolution also calls for an immediate end to external support to the rebels and asks the U.N. secretary-general to report on the allegations of foreign support while expressing its readiness to take appropriate measures.

It took the rare step in a resolution of singling out two M23 commanders by name: Innocent Kaina and Baudouin Ngaryu, and called for the council's sanctions committee to review their activity and unnamed other individuals.

Unnamed in the resolution were Rwanda and Uganda, which have been identified as supporters of the M23 rebellion by a U.N. panel of experts' report due out Friday and leaked to the AP.

Human Rights Watch said Tuesday that an advance copy of the report that it has reviewed names Rwanda and Uganda as supporting M23.

"Sadly, this resolution fails to name Rwandan officials known by the U.N. to have supported M23's atrocities from day one," said the U.N. director for Human Rights Watch, Philippe Bolopion. "Despite its influence on Rwanda, in public the U.S. government has been inexplicably silent," he added.

Rwanda's representative spoke to the council after the vote to deny that his country is involved in the Congolese rebellion. Uganda has previously denied involvement.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-11-20-UN-Congo/id-e631d7330075478b8312d31670c95f0c

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