101 "Ninja" rebels surrender

The director of military security of Republic of Congo (ROC), Col Valentin Bongo, has said 101 "Ninja" rebels have surrendered voluntarily since the first group handed in their guns on 11 August. They had been fighting government forces in the Pool region, just north of the capital, Brazzaville, for the past several months. The Ninjas are from Kinkala, Kindamba, Goma Tse-Tse and Kibossi, all localities in the Pool region. On 17 September, 34 Ninjas from Kindamba handed over a symbolic number of guns to a representative of the Congolese high commissioner for the reinsertion of ex-combatants, Capt Michel Ngakala. Although critical of widespread destruction throughout their districts in Pool, the representative of ex-combatants from Kindamba, Lazare Milandou, called on Ninjas remaining in the forest to come out and make peace. Some Ninjas said they delayed their surrender because they feared harassment and torture. "Since 2000, myself and the group that I led were going to surrender our arms, but the news that we received from [the capital] Brazzaville was certainly not reassuring. We heard of arbitrary arrests, illegal detentions and exactions," Lucien Loamba, leader of a group of 37 Ninjas from Kibossi, said. They are now housed with other comrades in one of the former National Assembly buildings in central Brazzaville. "For us, it was the appeal by the head of state that was the deciding factor. Plus, we no longer had food to eat or ammunition to fight the national army, which has far greater resources," said one fighter, who asked not to be named. Hostilities first erupted in the ROC at the end of March, when so-called Ninja militias, according to official sources, reportedly attacked several government military positions in Pool region. Ninja representatives have countered that the clashes were provoked when they discovered government plans to arrest their leader, Ntoumi. Following repeated civil wars throughout the 1990s that were ended by ceasefire agreements in 1999, the process of demobilising an estimated total of 25,000 militia fighters began in ROC. It includes members of the Cobras (loyal to current President Denis Sassou-Nguesso), the Cocoyes (loyal to former President Pascal Lissouba), and the Ninjas (loyal to former Prime Minister Bernard Kolelas). Through a UN Development Programme/International Organisation for Migration programme for the "Reintegration of Ex-Combatants and Collection of Light Weapons", which has been operating since November 2000, more than 7,500 ex-combatants have been assisted in the transition to civilian life by way of funds and training to start small businesses. Some 1,800 have been reintegrated by the government, primarily into the army. The initiative has also collected and destroyed 12,000 small arms.