UK grants DR Congo $774 mln in three-year aid package

KINSHASA, Feb. 12 (Xinhua) -- Britain has offered 600 million euros (774
million U.S. dollars) to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) in a
three-year aid package for the development of the war-torn central African
country, according to the British ambassador.

Nick Kay, Britain's top diplomat in DR Congo, announced the aid package on
Wednesday as part of bilateral cooperation, while pledging a financial support
to the UN peacekeeping mission in the country which accounts for one percent of
its functional budget.

The ambassador reiterated his country's firm support for the restoration of
peace and stability in DR Congo's eastern region, saying Britain gives full
backing to the Congolese-Rwandan operation against the Democratic Forces for the
Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).

Elements of FDLR, who are held responsible for the 1994 massacre in Rwanda,
caused internal conflicts in DR Congo and tensions between the two neighboring
countries since fleeing into the Congolese province of North Kivu after the mass
killing.

DR Congo invited Rwanda to join the anti-FDLR operation last month to
exterminate the root cause of their soured relations.

The Congolese-Rwandan operation has led to the arrest of renegade Tutsi
general Laurent Nkunda, whose National Congress in Defense of the People (CNDP)
posed the biggest threat to Kinshasa in the past months.

FDLR is also cornered with its commander Ignace Murwanashyaka appealing for
negotiations and more and more Rwandan expatriates leaving DR Congo voluntarily
for the home country.

The African Union commended the Congolese-Rwandan operation at its recent
summit in Addis Ababa, seeing it as a step to restore stability in both DR Congo
and the Great Lakes region as a whole.

DR Congo, which won independence from Belgium in 1960, has suffered two
civil wars since the 1990s. The 1998-2003 Congo war sucked in several countries
in the Great Lakes region, including Angola, Zimbabwe, Rwanda and Uganda. More
than 5 million people died in the bloodshed.

There are still an estimated one million refugees in North Kivu, including
250,000 displaced in the months-old flare-up between the government forces and
the CNDP.