Rebel leader 'wants guarantees'

2008-11-17 14:10

Nairobi - DR Congo's rebel leader Laurent Nkunda has said he wants international guarantees on the integration of his forces into the national army, the UN's top envoy said on Monday.

Former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo was speaking to reporters in Nairobi a day after meeting Nkunda in the eastern Congolese city of Goma.

Nkunda "is not talking about anything that will keep him and his people out of the country", Obasanjo said.

"He is talking about the integration of his soldiers into the national army and he is even ready to continue serving in the army, a career he loves," UN chief Ban Ki-moon's envoy said.

"He wants an assurance from the UN and AU (African Union) on these," Obasanjo added, without elaborating.

Forces loyal to the renegade Tutsi general launched a fresh offensive against the regular army in late August, moving ever closer to the regional capital Goma and displaced some 250,000 people as a result of the clashes.

Nkunda accuses the government in Kinshasa of harbouring Rwandan Hutu genocide perpetrators and failing to protect DR Congo's Tutsi population.

Like many Congolese Tutsis, Nkunda began his military career in the ranks of the Rwandan Patriotic Front which brought to an end in July 1994 to the genocide perpetrated by the Hutu regime in Kigali.

After two years in the Rwandan army he joined rebels in neighbouring former Zaire, headed by Laurent-Desire Kabila, the father of the current head of state Joseph Kabila who in 1997 overthrew the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko with the help of the Rwandan and Angolan armies.

Obasanjo, who held talks in eastern DR Congo and Kinshasa over the weekend, said that Nkunda had agreed to a three-way mechanism to monitor a ceasefire.

- AFP