Congo rebel Nkunda says his men to join govt army
Source: Reuters
(Writes through with delays, quotes, details) By Joe Bavier KINSHASA, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Renegade Congolese General Laurent Nkunda, who heads an eastern rebellion and is wanted for war crimes, said on Thursday his fighters had started rejoining the government army after talks in Rwanda. Nkunda's forces have repeatedly stymied efforts to establish peace and government authority in the east of the huge country, where an array of ethnic militias have murdered, robbed and raped civilians since the end of a wider 1998-2003 war. "I think this is going to lead to a peaceful settlement," Nkunda told Reuters by telephone. Nkunda said he planned to rejoin the army, but only once the government lifted his international arrest warrant. A U.N. military spokesman said troops from both sides had gathered in volatile North Kivu province for reintegration, although the process of mixing Nkunda's forces with government forces was delayed on Thursday due to logistical problems moving a team to the site to carry out a pre-integration census. President Joseph Kabila, elected in Congo's first democratic polls in over 40 years, has pledged to try to end violence and foster national unity in a country riven by ethnic faultlines. Nkunda, a former high-ranking army general, led two brigades in a mutiny against Kabila's forces in North Kivu in 2004. The government has issued an international warrant via Interpol for Nkunda's arrest for alleged war crimes committed by his forces during their 2004 occupation of the town of Bukavu. Nkunda denies the charges. He has previously said he fears marginalisation of Kinyarwanda speakers like himself as Congo's western capital Kinshasa imposes its authority on eastern areas effectively annexed by Rwandan-backed rebel groups in the war. TALKS IN RWANDA He dismissed reports he would seek exile in South Africa. "I'm going to serve in the army," he said. "(But) we must establish confidence in the area. We must repeal this arrest warrant." A U.N. official said last year that arresting Nkunda, who has thousands of troops and followers, would be "too sensitive". Nkunda's fighters attacked government units near the provincial capital Goma late in November, sparking a month of sporadic fighting that forced tens of thousands of civilians to flee and prompting the intervention of the U.N. peacekeeping force -- at over 17,000-strong, the world's biggest. At least 150 of Nkunda's fighters were killed when U.N. helicopter gunships bombarded his positions outside Goma to prevent an advance on the city. His brigades generally remove their dead, leading some to believe losses may have been higher. U.N. mission spokesman Kemal Saiki said he could not say whether those losses had helped push Nkunda to the negotiate. "It's an assumption that could be made, but the only person that could answer that is Nkunda," he said. Rwandan-brokered talks in Kigali between Nkunda and a Congolese military general began in late December, leading to an informal agreement to mix Nkunda's fighters with army brigades. The Congolese army's deputy commander in North Kivu, Colonel Delphin Kahimbi, said as many as three battalions, or around 2,500 soldiers, could go through the mixing process.
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