Rwandan opposition group supports ban on rebels

An ethnically mixed Rwandan opposition group in exile, Igihango, has supported the banning of all Rwandan rebel groups from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

"Insofar as the decision of the government of the DRC [to ban the armed Rwandan groups] is part of an effective implementation of the Pretoria accord, we don't see any inconvenience," Deo Mushayidi, spokesman for the Igihango alliance, told a press conference in Brussels on Thursday.

Igihango is an umbrella group comprising ex-Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) members, the Alliance pour la renaissance de la nation (ARENA), the monarchist movement Nation-Imbanga y'Inyabutatu Nyarwanda, and combatants of the Forces democratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR).

The DRC Government's decision, announced on 24 September, specifically referred to the FDLR, adding that its leaders had 72 hours to leave the country.

The following day the Rwandan government objected to the decision, saying it allowed rebel leaders to go free. "This measure is insufficient. By calling about 20 officials of the FDLR personae non grata, Kinshasa has simply authorized them to leave Congolese territory and remain at large," Joseph Mutaboba, the Rwandan foreign ministry secretary general, told AFP.

The measure was taken as part of the Pretoria accord, signed on 30 July, between Presidents Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Joseph Kabila of the DRC which committed the latter to the disarmament and repatriation of Rwandan rebel groups in exchange for a Rwandan withdrawal from DRC territory.

Igihango was founded by Rwandan Hutu refugees in 2001, who were fleeing the advance of Rwandan troops in the DRC. They sided with the DRC government in the four-year war against Rwanda and Uganda. Its leaders have continually disassociated themselves from the Interahamwe militia and the former Rwandan army (ex-FAR), who were responsible for the 1994 genocide.