Militia demands withdrawal of Rwandan troops in DRC

The Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda, an anti-government militia, said on Tuesday that it agreed to disarm 3,000 of its "freedom fighters" in the southeastern province of Katanga, as a demonstration of its support for the international effort to bring peace to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

"Our presence in DRC may no longer be a pretext for Rwanda to maintain its troops in that country," Alexis Nshimyimana, the group's spokesman, told reporters in Brussels on Tuesday. Therefore, he added, the Rwandan government should withdraw all its troops, accept an inter-Rwandan dialogue, and "cease the manhunt of survivors" in the occupied territories.

"Our wish is to return to our home country as deserving citizens and not as slaves," he said.

Nshimyimana said that his group refused to be associated with the Interahamwe (Hutu militias) and former Rwandan army Hutu soldiers known as the ex-FAR who are blamed for the 1994 mass killing of some 800,000 Tutsi and politically moderate Hutus.

"I don't know anyone of them," he said. "All this confusion is created by the Rwandan government in order to demonise us," he said. Yet, he said some ex-FAR were fighting with his group, and some were now serving in the present Rwandan Patriotic Army.

Asked about the genocide of 1994, he said that his organisation preferred to denounce the "extermination of more than five million Rwandan and Congolese people by [Rwandan President Paul] Kagame's forces since 1990". He called for an international commission of investigation for "all the crimes". He also denied that his forces were fighting with the Burundian anti-government group, the Forces de defense de la democratie, against the Tutsi-dominated Burundi army.

"We know them but we don't fight together and we are not present in Burundi," Nzhimyimana said.