UN General Assembly
1998

of the Organization of African Unity (OUA), obliges me to dwell at length on this dispute in the hope of helping the Assembly understand better the drama that is currently taking place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, my dear homeland. In order to enable the Assembly better to understand this war and all of its consequences, a brief reminder of the facts is necessary. On 27 July 1998, the President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mzee Laurent-Désiré Kabila, after consultations with his Rwandan and Ugandan counterparts took the sovereign decision to terminate Rwanda’s military and technical cooperation and to put an end to the presence of foreign troops throughout the national territory. When Rwanda’s troops left Congolese territory, it was noticed that certain Tutsis of Rwandan origin, called Banyamulenge, followed suit. A week later, Congolese towns bordering on Rwanda — Goma, Bukavu and Uvira — were seized by armed elements that came from that neighbouring country. On 6 August, aircraft started shuttling between Goma and Kitona, in the west of the country, via Kigali, over a