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THE HAGUE, June 13 (AFP) - The Democratic Republic of Congo on Thursday accused Rwanda of genocide before the International Court of Justice and asked for a ruling to have Kigali stop a "war of aggression", but Rwanda told the court the allegations are baseless.

The suit brought by Kinshasa before the International Court of Justice, the highest judicial organ of the United Nations established to settle legal differences between states, also accused Rwanda of practising a scorched earth policy in eastern DRC.

"The criminal acts, murders and looting are part and parcel of the scorched earth strategy being practised by Rwanda on Congolese soil," the DRC's Human Rights Minister Alphonse Ntumba Luaba told the court, which sits in the Dutch capital.

"The gratuitous massacres by Rwandan troops of unarmed civilians have gone on long enough," he added, pleading for the world court to order that Rwanda's "war of aggression" against the DRC stop immediately.

But Rwanda's Attorney General Gerard Gahima told the court that "the allegations against my country do not have any foundation."

He argued that the DRC itself was responsible for current turmoil because it had taken in those held responsible for Rwanda's 1994 genocide.

"We are asking the court to reject this request," Gahima said.

The issue of genocide was used by each side to attack the other.

On May 28 this year Kinshasa filed a suit with the ICJ accusing Rwanda of "massive, serious and flagrant violations of human rights" and asked the court to find Kigali guilty of "genocide against more than 3.5 million Congolese".

Independent human rights sources have estimated that about 2.5 million DRC citizens have died as a direct or indirect result of the war that began with a rebel insurgency in August 1998, with Rwanda and Uganda backing rebels and Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia supporting Kinshasa.

Rwanda's Gahima charged that the "origin of the crisis in DRC goes back to 1994" because Kinshasa gave "shelter, sanctuary, military and political assistance to those who perpetrated these atrocities" - the killing of a million minority Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus, according to the Rwandan government.

Other sources put the toll in the Rwandan genocide at between half a million and 800,000.

Rwanda today backs the rebel Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), which holds about a third of the vast central African country, including the third largest city, Kisangani.

On Thursday the DRC made repeated reference to bloodshed in Kisangani in mid-May, when a botched uprising was violently repressed. According to reports, a group of attackers took over the radio station in the town, an important UN peacekeeping base, for about three hours on May 14.

Two days later, DRC Foreign Minister Leonard She Okitundu accused Rwandan troops of having executed members of the RCD rebel group, which controls Kisangani, and several police officers in reprisal.

But Gahima told the ICJ that "there are no Rwandan troops in Kisangani today. In fact, there have been no Rwandan troops for two years."

The number of deaths after the Kisangani violence has not been officially established, but local churches and civilian organisations have said the death toll could be as high as 200.

A report by the UN mission in the DRC (MONUC) condemned "grave violations of human rights" during the events.

The DRC also wants compensation for "all acts of looting, slaughter, removal of property or persons and other acts of wrongdoing" committed by Rwanda since 1998, including the "looting" of natural resources.

The immediate hearings will only deal with so-called provisional measures sought by Kinshasa "to prevent irreparable harm being caused to its lawful rights and those of its population as a result of the occupation of part of its territory by Rwandan forces".

The ICJ can rule on provisional measures before handing down an official decision in a case if it deems that certain actions could cause irreparable harm to one of the states involved in the case.

Although the court's decisions are binding and without appeal, it has no means to enforce its rulings. Gahima said Rwanda did not recognise the competence of the court.

The court is expected to take about three weeks to reach a decision on possible provisional measures against Rwanda. - Nampa-AFP