09/09/13 Associated Press: Congo’s M23 rebels set conditions for disbanding
"We are ready to
disarm but for these two conditions," Bertrand Bisimwa, the M23 president,
told The Associated Press by phone.
He said the Democratic
Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or FDLR, should be disarmed before M23 can
be disbanded. In the past Rwanda
has justified military intervention in Congo
to protect itself from the FDLR, some of whose core members took part in the
1994 Rwanda
genocide.
Bisimwa's comments came on
the eve of renewed peace talks with Congo's
government in the Ugandan capital, Kampala.
The talks have repeatedly stalled since they started last December, and
Congolese President Joseph Kabila said on Saturday that government troops were
prepared to resume their offensive against the rebels if the talks failed.
The M23 rebel group, which
briefly captured the eastern city of Goma last November, is made up of hundreds
of Congolese soldiers mostly from the Tutsi ethnic group who deserted the
national army last year after accusing the government of failing to honor the
terms of a deal signed in March 2009. The rebels are widely believed to be
backed by the government of Rwanda,
a charge Rwanda
denies despite evidence presented by United Nations experts and Human Rights
Watch.
In the recent fighting,
however, Congolese troops were boosted by a special intervention brigade of
U.N. troops who, unlike the other 17,000 peacekeepers stationed in the vast
Central African nation, have a mandate to attack the rebels.
Bisimwa said that if M23
disbanded its fighters would have no interest in being integrated into the
Congolese army.
"Nobody is interested
in anything else," he said. "M23 will not be a political party. Each
one will take care of his cabbages and carrots, because we are herders, farmers
and merchants."
Lambert Mende, the
Congolese government spokesman, said Sunday that Kabila's administration had no
problem with the conditions set by M23, noting that the government has long
been working for the return of refugees and considers the FDLR to be "a
negative force just like M23."
Both conditions, however,
would be difficult to meet, especially given the government's inability to
stabilize Congo's
volatile east.