Congo's government yesterday said UN investigators are finally free to inquire into massacre sites. This followed threats to call off the inquiry into mass killings of Rwandan Hutus because of months of obstruction by Kinshasa.
But UN officials continued to doubt the government's intent despite efforts by Washington to win President Laurent Kabila's co-operation by assuring him that the inquiry will blame the war in the former Zaire on foreign interests and international organisations.
Kinshasa is under renewed pressure to allow the inquiry before a foreign donors' conference next week at which much-needed aid is expected to be tied to progress in the UN investigation.
The inquiry should have begun in July but after months of prevarication investigators have yet to visit a single massacre site.
On Tuesday, the UN Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan, threatened to pull the team out of Congo. It prodded the Reconstruction Minister, Mr Etienne Mbaya, into finally holding a much-postponed meeting with UN investigators yesterday to arrange visits to sites where tens of thousands of Rwandan Hutus, some of them refugees, were allegedly murdered during the war to overthrow Mobutu Sese Seko.
The UN team was also promised a meeting with President Kabila today. Mr Mbaya insisted that the investigators have been free to travel from Kinshasa all along. "We have not prevented the commission from starting its work. It's up to them to go where they want. Nobody prevents them from doing so," he said.
But UN officials said the government has repeatedly postponed meetings to arrange crucial facilities such as an army officer to clear the way through military roadblocks and to deal with other security problems. Airlines have also refused to sell the UN team tickets without official approval.
The government has repeatedly denounced the investigation as hypocritical because the UN failed to prevent the genocide in neighbouring Rwanda and oversaw the vast refugee camps in former Zaire where the presence of armed Hutus led directly to the Rwandan invasion of Congo and Mr Kabila's victory.
While the US and other countries are pressing for the inquiry to go ahead, they also see it as an awkward obstacle to providing crucial aid to nearly bankrupt Congo.
The Americans have tried to reassure Mr Kabila that his forces will not stand accused on their own.
"Kabila has been reassured by Washington that there's plenty of blame to go around. The UN, France, Rwanda all played a role," said one UN official. "We all know what happened here. It wasn't Congolese killing refugees. It was Rwandans killing Rwandans. The Americans told them that this is not going to result in an international tribunal, no one's going on trial. But they are still worried because they fear certain countries will use it as a stick to beat them."
Congo's Interior Minister, Mr Mwenzi Kongolo, says that is exactly what he expects the investigation to conclude. "This question is like a dead elephant. It's rotten inside and once you open that belly everyone gets splashed by the mess - the UN, the French, the aid agencies," he said. "But I don't think the UN is being reasonable. We have a lot of problems. They think their problem comes first, as if the UN is our father. I think there's a problem of attitude there."
The issue has taken on a renewed significance ahead of a meeting in Brussels on December 3rd of major donors and African regional powers. The Congo government intends to plead for more than £300 million in aid to kick-start the economy, pay civil servants and finance reconstruction.