Kivupeace.org

Mar 26, 2009
Rwanda says Nkunda will be returned to Congo
By Wendell Roelf

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - Rwanda signalled willingness on Wednesday to return a captured rebel general to Congo, but set no timeframe
and said it needed to look at how this could be done.

Rwandan authorities arrested Congolese General Laurent Nkunda in January, and officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
want him returned to face war crimes charges.

"General Nkunda is a Congolese. His return place has to be DRC, but we agreed that we need to look at how this was done so that it
does not jeopardise the kinds of gains that we've been able to arrive at," Rwandan Foreign Minister Rosemary Museminali told reporters
in Cape Town.

She said a joint Rwandan-Congolese team considering Nkunda's repatriation would report to foreign ministers on March 27 and 28 in
Kinshasa. That meeting would also look at consolidating the success of a joint operation between Congolese and Rwandan troops in
eastern Congo in January against Rwandan Hutu rebels.

The rebels are accused of killing civilians and using rape as a weapon during their 14-year presence in Congo.

Rwanda has twice invaded its much larger western neighbour under the pretext of rooting them out, sparking a 1998-2003 war that
triggered a humanitarian catastrophe estimated to have killed 5.4 million people.

"Once the Rwandan forces have left (Congo), the DRC remains with the responsibility of dealing with the FDLR problem, so part of what
we will be discussing is how we carry forward these successes and be able to consolidate them," Museminali said.

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