DRC govt 'backs' rebels
2007-09-12 15:35
Goma - Rwandan President Paul Kagame called on Monday for a political deal to end fighting in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and said a renegade Tutsi general who had taken up arms there had some legitimate political grievances.
Kagame made the appeal as DRC's army and rebel general Laurent Nkunda maintained an uneasy four-day-old ceasefire in North Kivu province, the scene of heavy fighting between the two sides in the last two weeks.
Nkunda, who first led a revolt in 2004, said he was fighting to protect his Tutsi people in east DRC against attacks by largely Hutu FDLR Rwandan rebels accused of involvement in Rwanda's 1994 genocide.
Kagame's government had been pressing Congolese President Joseph Kabila to disband and expel the rebel Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR). Nkunda accused Kabila's government of directly supporting the FDLR insurgents.
Four million people killed
Kagame said: "You can't get rid of this problem in the DRC without applying heavily the political option because the underlying causes of that problem are mainly political."
The North Kivu fighting had alarmed neighbouring countries like Rwanda in the Great Lakes region, a tinderbox of wars, ethnic conflicts and border disputes.
Rwanda had twice invaded the DRC, the last time leading to a 1998-2003 war there that killed at least four million people, mostly from hunger and disease.
United Nations peacekeepers in the DRC, who brokered the fragile North Kivu ceasefire on Thursday, said on Monday that they believed the opposing sides were using the truce to reinforce their military positions.
Some analysts said the absence of direct peace talks raised questions about how long the lull in fighting would last.
Major Gabriel De Brosse, spokesperson for the UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC (Monuc), said: "For the moment, we still have a cessation of hostilities. But it is still very tense."
Kagame made clear he believed Nkunda should be viewed differently to the FDLR, which he called "guilty of genocide".
Thousands flee their homes
He said: "This man Nkunda, like him or not, and whatever mistakes you could hold him accountable for, has some political grievances that are legitimate."
Nkunda, whose fighters last month abandoned the mixed Congolese national army brigades they had joined as part of the January peace deal, had said he was ready to negotiate peace with the help of outside mediators.
The worsening fighting in North Kivu forced thousands of civilians to flee their homes.
It was a setback to efforts by Kabila, who won landmark elections late last year, to achieve lasting peace across the former Belgian colony, scarred by the 1998-2003 war.
At Sake, 20km west of the North Kivu provincial capital Goma, government soldiers were patrolling just 50 metres from Nkunda's positions. UN peacekeepers in tanks and armoured vehicles secured the town centre.
Jason Stearns, an independent DRC expert, said it was worrying that no political measures had been taken to bolster the ceasefire, and he believed more fighting was likely.
Stearns said: "The government has said on numerous occasions they want to solve this militarily. This is going to go on for weeks and weeks."