adminCongolese Communications Minister Lambert Mende told reporters in the capital Kinshasa on Thursday that General Gabriel Amisi was suspended pending a “thorough investigation” into the accusations, AFP reported.
The report written for the UN by a group of independent experts was published on Wednesday, saying that Amisi runs a huge arms smuggling network supplying weapons and ammunition to criminal groups and rebels, including Congolese rebels.
Amisi was also accused of gold smuggling in another report published in December.
The senior army commander’s suspension came two days after the Congolese army lost the main eastern city of Goma — the capital of the mineral-rich North Kivu province — to the March 23 movement (M23) rebel group.
The M23 rebels defected from the Congolese army in April in protest over alleged mistreatment in the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC). They had previously been integrated into the Congolese army under a peace deal signed in 2009.
The mutiny is being led by General Bosco Ntaganda, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court on a charge of recruiting child soldiers.
Since early May, over 750 000 people have fled their homes in the eastern Congo. Most of them have resettled inside Congo, but tens of thousands have crossed into neighbouring Rwanda and Uganda.
Congo has faced numerous problems over the past few decades, such as grinding poverty, crumbling infrastructure, and a war in the east of the country that has dragged on for over a decade and left over 5.5 million people dead. — Presstv
derick.khumalo
Online Reporter