Kofi Annan and the crisis in Congo (7 & 8)

Audio 49:00

In 1997, Rwandan refugees arrived in Ubundu in the DRC (former Zaire), they fled the Tingi Tingi camp attacked at the time by the rebel forces of Laurent Désiré Kabila.

CHRISTOPHE SIMON / AFP

By: Alain Foka Follow

50 mins

When in January 1997, Kofi Annan was appointed Secretary General of the United Nations, he did not imagine that he was going to be confronted with a new humanitarian catastrophe in the Great Lakes region.

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With the help of Rwanda and Uganda, Laurent-Désiré Kabila overthrows the regime of old Marshal Mobutu.

But, this was done by walking over hundreds of thousands of corpses.

Human rights organizations even speak of genocide, cumbersome mass graves that some in the environment attribute to soldiers, to foreign troops whose main concern was to keep the militias and the Hutu populations away from their borders.

The UN wants to investigate on the spot, but the new strongman of the Congo is not in favor of this approach.

Kofi Annan does not intend to let this new massacre go unpunished.

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