KIGALI, Rwanda (AP) – Rwanda on Sunday rejected a draft U.N. report that accuses the country’s officials of directly helping renegade Congolese troops who temporarily seized a key city in eastern Congo last month.

Rwandan Minister for Regional Cooperation Protais Mitali said the draft, leaked to The Associated Press before its release – expected Tuesday – was unfair and biased because its authors both refused to give Rwanda more than one day to discuss initial findings, and declined to discuss final accusations by claiming the investigation was secret.

The draft report says Rwandan officials recruited, trained and sheltered potential fighters in the Rwandan border town of Cyangugu, promising them mobile phones or $100 to fight with forces loyal to renegade Col. Jules Mutebutsi in the neighboring Congolese province of South Kivu.

Mutebutsi seized control of Bukavu, capital of South Kivu, on June 2 with the help of hundreds of troops loyal to another renegade officer, Brig. Gen. Laurent Nkunda. Congolese government troops retook the city June 9 after Nkunda and his troops withdrew under international pressure.

U.N. experts “concluded that Rwanda’s violations involved direct and indirect support, both in … Congo and in Rwanda, to the mutinous troops of Jules Mutebutsi and Laurent Nkunda,” the draft report said.

A Rwandan town that borders Bukavu “has been used strategically by Mutebutsi forces as a rear base for military operations, including recruiting drives,” the draft said. “Rwanda has also exerted a degree of command and control over Mutebutsi forces.”

The report also accuses Rwanda of keeping troops in Congo in violation of a July 2002 peace deal that led to the withdrawal of thousands of Rwandan soldiers from its vast neighbor.

Rwandan troops maintained semi-fixed positions in remote areas of Congo’s North Kivu province, the report says, citing numerous sources and eyewitness accounts.

“This information was collaborated with satellite imagery showing six heavy weapons encasements,” the draft says.

But Mitali dismissed the report, saying the U.N. experts who wrote it should produce proof to back the allegations.

“There are no Rwandan soldiers in the Congo. We have not helped, trained or recruited dissident soldiers involved in the recent wrangles in eastern Congo, and we challenge the U.N. panel of experts to produce tangible evidence,” Mitali told reporters.

Rwanda sent troops into Congo in August 1998 to back Congolese rebels seeking to oust former President Laurent Kabila.

Rwanda accused Kabila of backing rebels who played a key role in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, in which more than 500,000 minority Tutsis and political moderates from the Hutu majority were killed.

“This report side-steps the problem of Rwandan enemy forces operating in Congo,” Mitali said. “Playing down the security threat posed by these forces is entirely unfair and biased.”

AP-ES-07-18-04 1500EDT