Rwandan combatants in voluntary cantonment

The voluntary disarmament of 67 Rwandan Hutu combatants along with their dependants in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) should encourage other fighters to abandon armed conflict, a UN official said.

"We should consider the voluntary disarmament as an encouraging gesture," Sylvie van Wildenberg, spokeswoman for the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC), said.

"Since 2006 we have not seen the surrender of a group as important as the FDLR [Forces démocratiques pour la libération du Rwanda] or one of its dissident factions."

The combatants and their dependants were members of the FDLR dissident factions of Ralliement pour l'Unité et la démocratie (RUD) and the Rassemblement populaire rwandais (RPR).

The FDLR is the main remaining active Rwandan militia group in the DRC with an estimated 7,000 militias, against 400 for the RUD and RPR.

Van Wildenberg said the leader of the dissident factions had also indicated he would continue sensitising the remaining combatants to demobilise.

MONUC, she added, expected the gesture to encourage other combatant groups to join the disarmament, demobilisation, repatriation, reinsertion and reintegration (DDRRR) process.

At least 50 small arms and some machine guns were surrendered by the combatants. According to the RUD and RPR spokesman, Augustin Dukuze, those assembled at the cantonment site in Kasiki area were free to choose to be relocated or to leave the assembly site.

Since 2006 we have not seen the surrender of a group as important as the FDLR [Forces démocratiques pour la libération du Rwanda] or one of its dissident factions

The Congolese authorities were also providing security for the combatants in the area where Congolese and Rwandan militias remained active.

Dukuze said this was the first phase of the Kisangani roadmap. Under this plan, the RUD and RPR agreed to gather at two sites for disarmament in return for a guarantee of their security.

MONUC was asked to oversee the process and the DRC government not to forcibly repatriate the combatants to Rwanda.

The FDLR has, however, disowned the roadmap. The militia group also said it was not party to the signing of a communiqué between the Congolese and Rwandan government, in November 2007 in Nairobi, for the disarmament and repatriation of Hutu rebels from Rwanda.

At least 6,500 Hutu combatants remain in the DRC, with 8,000 others having been repatriated under the DDRRR process between 2001 and 2006. Some of the combatants are accused of having taken part in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

Their presence has been linked by human rights activists to the high rates of rape in the territory of Lubero, eastern DRC.

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