Rwanda has issued a strong-worded rebuttal ahead of the publication of the United Nations’ Group of Experts report in November, refuting allegations of Kigali supporting M23 rebels who have launched a rebellion in eastern DR Congo.

The 78-page rebuttal in response to the draft UN Experts Report, which was submitted to the UN Sanctions Committee, describes the findings and evidence presented by the experts as “unfounded” and “fabricated” with a lot of inaccuracies.

READ: UN report links Rwanda to Congolese violence

Using the report, Rwanda is attempting to brush off the allegations in the report, as development partners announce the suspension of aid to Kigali based on the findings of the experts who claim that there is evidence that top commanders of the Rwanda Defence Forces (RDF) are facilitating and aiding the rebels wreaking havoc in DR Congo.

According to Rwanda’s response to the report, the claims that Rwanda is training the rebels are “absurd” and “false” and aimed at apportioning unnecessary blame to Rwanda.

Accusations of Kigali’s involvement have persisted, with President Joseph Kabila of DR Congo coming out last week to state that Rwanda’s backing of M23 rebels is an “open secret,” while Rwanda’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Louise Mushikiwabo once again came out to say that the Congolese leadership is acting in “bad faith.”

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Speaking after the submission of the rebuttal, Ms Mushikiwabo said that Rwanda has responded to all the accusations in the experts’ report, word for word, distancing itself from the rebels loyal to Gen Bosco Ntaganda, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court.

“The experts were here and we gave them our responses and documented evidence to support our position. What puzzles us up to now is the reason behind the publication of the contents of the addendum without giving us a chance to defend ourselves,” Ms Mushikiwabo said.

She said that the draft UN report has a lot of procedural and factual flaws which the rebuttal “punches holes” into but added that she does not expect the authors to withdraw their current allegations, which would put their credibility at stake.

According to Ms Mushikiwabo, the Group of Experts on DR Congo were in Rwanda to verify Rwanda’s position but again it was a “little too late” as some countries had already decided to take action based on the addendum of the draft report, by suspending aid.

Rwanda is hoping to defuse the explosive report or at least cut down on the explicitness of the findings before they are published in November.

The foreign minister said Rwanda has seen even more categorical reports come and go, but what is clear is that the current one has had an “overwhelming” effect, having drawn a wave of global reaction.

“We have seen reports come and go and this one, which is based on biased and unfounded allegations, will pass too,” Ms Mushikiwabo said.

Kigali’s response denies that Kanombe military barracks, which paragraph 31(a) of the addendum cites, is the location where M23 rebels were trained by RDF for two weeks before they were deployed in Runyoni as Gen Ntaganda’s advance party, saying that it is literally “impossible.”

“It is common and verifiable knowledge that Kanombe military barracks, which is located a stone’s-throw from Kigali International Airport, cannot be used to train a force of such nature, because it has no training facilities,” Ms Mushikiwabo said.

According to the rebuttal, Kanombe is a garrison-type barracks that comprises living quarters; a referral military hospital also open to civilian patients; a cemetery; and five service support unit headquarters and related facilities.

“It wouldn’t require any form of expertise to see that these barracks cannot host the training of recruits or any other force’s preparation activity,” the rebuttal says.

Ms Mushikiwabo points out that a simple tour of Kanombe barracks would have led the Group of Experts “to easily discard this allegation wherever they got it from.” When the experts were in Kigali, Ms Mushikiwabo said, the experts visited the barracks to verify that.

Ms Mushikiwabo, who also doubles up as the government spokesperson, said that the RDF is no longer in possession of the type of arms, including 72mm canons, which the experts say were given to M23 rebels.

She said that such arms were discarded in 2008 in the presence of a UN official who is part of the Group of Experts, but DRC still has the said arms, which would mean that the mutineering M23 soldiers could have obtained them from government armouries.

The rebuttal also attempts to clear Brig Gen Jacques Nziza, who the experts report says had been deployed in northern Rwanda to “supervise and co-ordinate military, financial, logistical and mobilisation activities of the rebel organisation” but Rwanda maintains that this is false.

Gen Nziza is the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Defence and according to the rebuttal, details of the meetings and the persons he met in Kigali during the said period are available to verify and were shown to the UN experts when they were in the country last week.

Kigali also denies that the ICC-wanted rebel leader Gen Ntaganda owns property in Rwanda, saying that the said houses and a hotel in northern Rwanda belong to Rwandan nationals who possess land titles that can be verified.

Ever since the allegations of Rwanda supporting the mutiny in DRC were made, Kigali has struggled to defuse the contents of the report, which if published, could see serious sanctions imposed against the country.

Last week, President Kabila, who has been “less vocal” over the past couple of months, came out to speak for the first time, stating that Rwanda is backing the rebels who have launched a rebellion that has seen over 200,000 people flee North Kivu into neighbouring Rwanda and Uganda.

Ms Mushikiwabo maintains that the accusations against Rwanda are meant to confirm an established narrative that makes Rwanda a scapegoat for the problems in Congo, in what she said is “narrow and superficial” thinking by those attributing the problems in Congo to Rwanda.

President Kabila also said that his government was looking into the possibility of Uganda having deployed its troops across the common border into Congo but Kampala came out strongly to state that the Uganda Peoples’ Defence Force (UPDF) is not in DRC.

Kampala is next week expected to host a meeting of 11 countries under the auspices of the International Conference for the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) to discuss the Congo issue.

President Paul Kagame and President Kabila as well as the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon are expected to attend.

Whether the UN will go ahead and publish the Group of Experts report later this year will mark the turning point in the Congo crisis, which is threatening to tear apart the vast mineral-rich country.

M23 rebels have vowed not to cease their attacks despite coming under heavy fire from government forces and the UN peacekeeping forces under Monusco.

Speaking to Rwanda Today, rebels spokesperson Lt Col Jean Marie Vianney Kazarama said that the rebels are determined to hold their positions.

“We are in Rutshuru and Masisi and not about to leave or surrender. We cannot give in to a government that is planning to carry out an ethnic cleansing,” the rebel’s publicist said in a phone interview.

Protests are said to have rocked Kinshasa, with Congolese people demanding an end to the crisis in the east of the country as the government forces fail to hold back the advancing rebels.

Congolese refugees in several European capitals have also attempted to attack Rwandan embassies, accusing Rwanda of stoking conflict in their country.

Rwanda has in the past managed to water down the effects of adverse reports, including the 2010 UN Mapping Report that accused Rwanda of committing atrocities similar to genocide in Congo, but it remains to be seen whether this time round Kigali will be able to keep the experts’ report off the UN shelves.