UN missions to help repatriate former soldiers

Consultations are at an advanced stage between the UN Peace-building Office in the Central African Republic (CAR), known as BONUCA, and the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) on how to repatriate some 300 former CAR soldiers living in the Congo, a UN official told IRIN on Wednesday. BONUCA Information Officer Aissatou Toure said the CAR government had asked MONUC and BONUCA to help with the repatriation of the former soldiers, who fled the country in June 2001. She said MONUC began talks in mid-May with the Mouvement de Liberation du Congo (MLC), a rebel group controlling most of northwestern Congo, on the repatriation. The former soldiers have been living at Bokilio, 150 km from the CAR border. They fled the country after a failed 28 May 2001 coup by former President Andre Kolingba. After former army chief of staff Francois Bozize ousted President Ange-Felix Patasse in a coup on 15 March, Bozize announced an amnesty for all who had been convicted in connection with the failed coup and, like many others, the former soldiers at Bokilio requested repatriation. Between 9 and 16 June, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) repatriated about 2,500 refugees from Camp Mole in the DRC, 35 km from the CAR border. The UNHCR representative in the CAR, Emile Segbor, told IRIN on Monday that the UN agency's mandate prevented it from repatriating former soldiers. Since March, at least 800 former soldiers have returned on their own to the CAR, and some of them have been reinstated in the army. In a related development, Bozize reinstated on Wednesday Lt-Col Guy Rufin Kolingba, son of the elder Kolingba, into the CAR army. Guy, his two brothers and their father were among 21 people who were sentenced to death in absentia in August 2002 in connection with the 28 May 2001 coup attempt. Along with the conviction, Patasse had demoted the former president and his son to the rank of private, the lowest in the army. In May, Bozize announced that he had reinstated Kolingba to his the rank of retired lieutenant general. On his part, Kolingba announced his intention to return home. Meanwhile, a member of the national committee set up to oversee the repatriation of refugees, announced on Radio Centrafrique on Wednesday that the committee would send a delegation to Mole in the DRC, to meet with 100 refugees who have refused to return home. The UNHCR field officer in northern DRC, Marie-Antoinette Okimba, told IRIN on Wednesday that Camp Mole would be closed on 30 June, at the latest. A member of the committee’s coordination unit, Paul Niwadama, said that when the repatriation of refugees from the DRC and the Republic of the Congo was completed, the body would begin that of the 41,000 refugees in southern Chad who fled the country between October 2002 and March 2003 following fighting between government and rebel troops. Fighting ended with Bozize's coup.