UNITED NATIONS, October 4 -- For at least three weeks Inner City Press has asked the IMF "On Rwanda, does the cutting of aid based on alleged support of M23 rebels in DRC have any impact on IMF analysis of or programs in the country?"
Finally as the last question at the IMF's October 4 media briefing spokesman Gerry Rice took the question. He replied, "An IMF mission is in Rwanda... Delays in aid disbursement is one of the issues the mission is looking into. We expect the mission to complete its work early next week and we will issue a press release at that time."
At the UN, there was a flurry of activity on the Democratic Republic of Congo and its neighbor, Rwanda in September but as noted the topic is not even listed on the agenda of the Security Council for October.
After last week's closed-door mini summit on the topic at the UN, Inner City Press was told that the most vocal in pushing sanctions against Rwanda was Belgium, for the allegations of support to the M23 mutineers made in the UN report coordinated by Steve Hege, whose 2009 writings about the FDLR and Rwanda have yet to be explained (they were taken off the Internet after Inner City Press linked to them).
On Tuesday Inner City Press asked income Security Council president Gert Rosenthal of Guatemala why DRC is not on the agenda, is it just on hold? Video here, from Minute 22:48.
Rosenthal told Inner City Press that on "Eastern DRC, the Security Council has been waiting for some type of agreement among the Great Lake governments, so far it has not come forth."
Referring to Inner City Press' question he said, "the way you put it, the topic being on hold, is an accurate reflection of where we are right now. The situation is not good, and that is the reason we are reminding ourselves in the footnote that the topic may come to us this month, though not specifically scheduled." Watch this site.
There is another question on Rwanda, "Does the cutting of aid based on alleged support of rebels in DRC have any impact on IMF analysis or of programs in the country?" I can say an IMF mission is in Rwanda to conduct a fifth review under the Policy Support Instrument and the discussions for the 2012 Article IV consultation. To answer Matthew directly, delays in aid disbursements is one of the issues the mission is looking into. We expect the mission to complete its work early next week and we'll issue a press release at that time.