Disarming Interahamwe under discussion

DRC Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Yerodia has blamed France's Operation Turquoise in 1994 for "bringing Rwandan Hutu militiamen into the Congo". Ways of disarming the Interahamwe remains one of the sticking points to the signing of an accord in Lusaka. In an interview with Gabonese radio, Yerodia said there were "hoodlums among the last batch of refugees" who entered the DRC. "It was France, which carried out Operation Turquoise...an operation which brought a lot of people into Congo, and one could clearly see armed men among them," he said. "Those who brought the armed men should assume their responsibility and organise another Operation Turquoise to take them away." Rwandan Minister in the President's Office, Patrick Mazimhaka, who is in Lusaka, noted that the Congolese government and rebels had agreed to hold talks on the country's leadership and army. "What remains is the security of countries neighbouring Congo," he told the BBC Kinyarwanda service. He said Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda were looking for ways to arrest and repatriate rebels fighting those countries such as the Interahamwe, Forces pour la defense de la democratie (FDD and the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF). "We believe they should return home so as to end the tension existing between us and the Congo," Mazimhaka said.