DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: Fugitive rebel leader in eastern Congo says he's ready to negotiatie just days ahead of DRC's first election in 40 years

Record ID: 829756

  • Title: DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: Fugitive rebel leader in eastern Congo says he's ready to negotiatie just days ahead of DRC's first election in 40 years
  • Date: 29th July 2006
  • Summary: GENERAL LAURENT NKUNDA FLANKED BY REBELS (SOUNDBITE) (English) CONGOLESE WARLORD GENERAL LAURENT NKUNDA SAYING: "There have not been transition, now how can we go in election without transition and transition is the one that can plan for a good election? If there is no transition, there is no election and you know for yourself that there is no transition because there were objectives that were not achieved" JOURNALIST ASKING QUESTIONS (SOUNDBITE) (English) CONGOLESE WARLORD, GENERAL LAURENT NKUNDA SAYING: "If he (current President, Joseph Kabila) can change policies were are going to deal, we are going to work, we are going to talk with him, and there is no problem. And if he cannot accept to rule in the whole Congo, now I don't know, for us to be liberated we are going to use all means we can have but we are going to fight for our liberation"
  • Embargoed: 13th August 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA814JQAUSLQY8P526WRY7V7X6H
  • Story Text: A renegade Congolese general wanted for war crimes says he is willing to negotiate with the winner of Sunday's (July 30) historic elections to end his insurgency and integrate his fighters into a national army.
    But Gen. Laurent Nkunda, a former rebel chief from Congo's 1998-2003 war who has already once refused an army post, said he would fight back if a new elected president tried to defeat him militarily.
    "If he (current President Joseph Kabila) can change policies were are going to deal, we are going to work, we are going to talk with him, and there is no problem. And if he cannot accept to rule in the whole Congo, now I don't know, for us to be liberated we are going to use all means we can have but we are going to fight for our liberation," Nkunda told Reuters in an interview late on Friday (July 28) at his bush base in the highlands of eastern Congo.
    Sunday's presidential and parliamentary elections will be the first multi-party polls in the vast, mineral-rich former Belgian state after 40 years of dictatorship, war and chaos.
    Protected by the U.N.'s largest peacekeeping force, the vote is intended to usher in an era of peace. But fears remain that rebels and renegade militias could disrupt voting.
    Nkunda, who is the target of an international arrest warrant for alleged atrocities against civilians committed since 2004, said his fighters would not interfere with the polls.
    But he questioned the legitimacy of the vote and accused President Jospeh Kabila, frontrunner out of 32 candidates, of failing to reconcile Congo's ethnically-varied people.
    "There have not been transition, now how can we go in election without transition and transition is the one that can plan for a good election? If there is no transition, there is no election and you know for yourself that there is no transition because there were objectives that were not achieved," Nkunda said surrounded by two dozen officers and bodyguards clad in uniforms of the new national army.
    Nkunda, from the Tutsi ethnic group that exists in Rwanda, Burundi and Congo, is a former commander of the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD) that rebelled against the central Kinshasa government in the 1998-2003 war.
    He refused a post in the integrated national army and last year called for the overthrow of Kabila's government.
    He has attracted followers of Rwandan origin in the east who have faced attacks from other Congolese still bitter over Rwanda's involvement and backing for rebel groups in the war.
    International human rights groups, who also accuse Nkunda of recruiting child soldiers, have criticised the weak Congolese army and U.N. peacekeepers for failing to arrest him.
    He rejects the charges against him as politically motivated.
    The government said in February it was close to arresting Nkunda, and knew his whereabouts.
    So too do U.N. peacekeepers. On Friday, a U.N. military helicopter circled low over Nkunda's bush base, in what his fighters said was a daily occurrence.
    Earlier, a truckload of U.N. peacekeepers rolled through the nearby village of Kitchanga, about 160 km (100 miles) northwest of the North Kivu district capital of Goma.
    But residents are not deterred by the rebels or UN troops. They say they're ready for the election.
    "I'm very happy here because we don't experience problems and we don't have anything to complain about, we are just waiting to vote," said one woman.
    "Oh! Am very ready to vote, I'm prepared to have my voice heard through the ballot," added another resident.
    Nkunda is believed to control hundreds of fighters and also retains the sympathies of other former RCD rebels who joined the national army.
    He acknowledged he was building up his forces and had formed a political-military alliance with another eastern rebel group.
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