Rwanda: FDLR Rebels Surrender, Demand Talks With Government

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Rwanda News Agency/Agence Rwandaise d'Information (Kigali)

1 August 2008
Posted to the web 1 August 2008

Kinshasa

In a drama-filled hander over of their guns, Rwandan rebels aligned to the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda - FDLR said on Thursday that their return can only be after 'inter-Rwandan dialogue', RNA reports.

About 67 rebels from the RUD group (Rassemblement pour l'unité et la démocratie) and a dissident faction of the FDLR surrendered to a joint UN-DRC government reception center in the Lubero area of the North Kivu province.

However, the FDLR group told journalists later that putting down their guns did not mean automatic return to Rwanda as it had been anticipated by U.N. and DRC government officials at the site.

It is probably the first time that the rebels have decided to put their guns down but rebuked coming back to Rwanda.

Up to 20,000 of these Rwanda militias - some who are accused in Kigali of Genocide - have been repatriated as part of the World Bank funded project that has reached some 60,000 former combatants.

The demand for what this break-away faction of the FDLR rebels call 'inter-Rwandan dialogue' has been the position held by the group's top hierarchy - who experts say are holding the low rank militias hostage against their will.

This position is explained to mean that they want talks with government that should result into a range of reforms in the management of the country - ushering in their high-profile demobilisation.

Government of Rwanda has outrightly dismissed this demand instead saying they should return like millions of other Rwandans have over the years from different countries across the region.

Among its ranks, are those that left Rwanda after the Genocide as minors and grew up in the jungles. It is this age group that has maintained the flow of surrenders. The older lot however, - that is actually said to have blood on their hands - have rarely appeared.

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Since 2003, when the FDLR top commander Major General Paul Rwarakabije and Brigadier Jerome Ngendahimana along with a dozen other militias joined government in Kigali, very few top defections have occurred.

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