Banyamulenge party calls for reconciliation with neighbours

The leader of Congo's Forces republicaines federalistes (FRF), Muller Ruhimbika, said on Tuesday that media reports that he had acquired arms to fight Rwandan troops in South Kivu, a province in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, were wrong.

"The FRF is not a politico-military party," he told IRIN.

The Kigali weekly, Umueseso, which ran the story on 10 December, also reported divisions within the Congolese Tutsi community known as the Banyamulenge. The Banyamulenge formed the FRF in 1998 in opposition to Rwanda and the Rassemblement congolais democratique-Goma (RCD-Goma), which is backed by Rwanda and active in eastern Congo. These two entities, Ruhimbika said, had not been defending the interests of the Banyamulenge.

"We are our own protectors as the Banyamulenge people have been dying every day despite the presence of the Rwandans and the RCD," he said.

Ruhimbika said the reported divisions within Banyamulenge ranks were between those who were "seeking jobs... and those in favour of a solution [to the Banyamulenge problem], which does not involve Rwanda". The two wars in the Congo were, he said, "the Kagame-Kabila one, which is an economically motivated war, and the ethnic one opposing Banyamulenges and their neighbours".

Peace in the Congo, he said, depended on the resolution of the Banyamulenge's problem. Rwandan Hutu militias, their Congolese Hutu allies, and members of the Zairean armed forces fought the Banyamulenge in eastern Congo in mid-1996. The long-running dispute over the Banyamulenge's entitlement to Congolese nationality erupted when in October of that year the governor of South Kivu gave them a week to leave the country, despite their having lived in the area for centuries. The order was subsequently revoked, but the action had already provoked a powerful backlash against the Banyamulenge. In response, the Tutsi-dominated government in Rwanda and its ally, Uganda, extended covert support to the Banyamulenge, according to reports.

"We must find a politically negotiated solution by emphasising on the reconciliation with our neighbours," Ruhimbika said.