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Government supports inclusion of Mayi-Mayi in dialogue

    NAIROBI

    The DRC government supports the incorporation of its Mayi-Mayi allies into the inter-Congolese peace and reconciliation talks due to begin on 15 October, AFP reported Tuesday.

    DRC Foreign Minister Leonard She Okitundu told diplomats and reporters in Kinshasa, the Congolese capital, that the proposal was discussed at a weekend meeting in Kigali, Rwanda, of the Political Committee charged with implementing the Lusaka peace agreement. Okitundu said the Rwandan government had moved closer to accepting that the Mayi-Mayi are Congolese rather than one of a number of foreign armed groups in eastern DRC - labeled in the Lusaka accord as "negative forces".

    Okitundu said the committee had asked Botswana's former president, Ketumile Masire, the facilitator for the approaching talks, "to find a solution to the question of including the Mayi-Mayi in the dialogue", AFP reported. Earlier in September, Mayi-Mayi militia operational commander "General" Joseph Padiri demanded participation at the talks.

    Mayi-Mayi forces are based in the eastern Kivu provinces on land mainly controlled by Rwandan-backed rebels who took up arms against Kinshasa in August 1998. Late DRC president Laurent-Desire Kabila had integrated them into an anti-rebel coalition fighting alongside the regular army, under the combined name of the People's Self-Defence Forces.

    This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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