Government, UN troops deploy to sensitise foreign fighters in Walungu

Approximately 3,260 Congolese and an undisclosed number of UN troops began deploying on Monday to Walungu Territory, in South Kivu Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), to sensitise foreign armed groups to abide by a disarmament process and return home, military officials said.

"The objective of this operation is to force the Interahamwe to leave Walungu," Lt. Kasanda wa Kasanda, spokesman for the 10th Military Region based in South Kivu, said. "We surrounded them this morning and have given them two months to accept voluntary repatriation under the DDRRR programme or we will make them leave."

Congolese Defence Minister Jean-Pierre Ondekane said the army had been ordered to disarm and repatriate all foreign groups by force, in line with an agreement reached by the DRC and neighbouring Rwanda. The most notorious of the foreign-armed groups now in eastern Congo is the Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR). Its core is made up of members of the old Rwandan army, know as the ex-FAR, and the Interahamwe. They are accused of having been behind the Rwandan genocide of 1994, in which the current government estimates 937,000 people died. The ex-FAR and Interahamwe fled to eastern DRC as Rwandan Patriotic Forces, under the overall command of the current president, Paul Kagame, seized the capital, Kigali.

While confirming its involvement in the operation, the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC) said it would stick to its mandate of disarmament and voluntary repatriation.

"It is out of the question for MONUC to disarm Interahamwe FDLR and other foreign armed groups by force," Eliena Nabaa, the MONUC spokeswoman in Bukavu, said. "However, we support the institutions, the government and the Congolese army whose task it is to sensitise these groups in disarmament, demobilisation, repatriation, re-insertion and resettlement," she said.

Nabaa said their "first step" would be "to contact the FDLR and other foreign armed groups and show them that the Congolese would no longer tolerate their presence" in the country.

The MONUC official in charge of the DDRRR programme, Peter Swarbrick, said 11,185 foreign-armed fighters and their dependents had already been repatriated. Close to 8,000 other, most of whom are Rwandans, have been held hostage by extremists among them, thereby preventing their return home under the DDRRR programme.

Congolese and MONUC military authorities said Walungu had become a haven of several local and foreign armed groups that have been committing crimes against civilians.

"Several groups such as the Mayi-Mayi, the Rasta, the FDLR, as well as other armed groups, are based in this area," Nabaa said. "That is why Congolese troops are being deployed there to take control and return security to the civil population."