Resolve DRC-Rwanda standoff peacefully, MPs urge

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda should hold talks to end their standoff peacefully, a representative of a regional parliamentary body, the Great Lakes Parliamentary Forum on Peace, said on Saturday.

"We are very much concerned with the border situation between DRC and Rwanda, and we want a quick dialogue to end a potential trouble," Mwitila Shumina, an executive member of the forum, told IRIN.

The forum for Members of Parliament (MP) from Africa's Great Lakes, also known as AMANI - the Swahili word for peace - had held a one-day meeting in Arusha, Tanzania.

Shumina, an MP from Zambia, said AMANI would like Congolese and Rwandan legislators to meet, "hopefully before March, to end their standoff peacefully".

Congolese President Joseph Kabila has decided to send 10,000 extra troops to eastern Congo, near the border with Rwanda, following allegations that Rwandan soldiers had invaded to flush out Rwandan Hutu rebels.

"We [Africans] should get away from conflicts and divert our energies to alleviate poverty and underdevelopment in the region," Aggrey Mwanri, a Tanzania MP who is a member of the forum, said.

The MPs also discussed the voluntary repatriation of refugees from Zambia and Tanzania.

"The meeting praised the move and urged other refugees still in these countries to return peacefully to their respective countries," Mwanri said.

The 12-member AMANI forum comprises legislators from Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. Legislators from the DRC were invited as observers.

During their meeting, the MPs praised the International Peace and Security Conference on the Great Lakes, which was held on 30 November in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and in which heads of states committed themselves to ending conflicts in the region.