The UN Security Council has welcomed a recent peace agreement between Rwanda and the DRC, and called on Rwandan rebels holed up in the latter’s territory to unconditionally disarm and repatriate immediately.

The Security Council’s president Ambassador Marty Natalegawa said he was optimistic the agreement would lead to the disarmament of Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR) rebels.

Rwanda and DRC signed a historic treaty early this month in Nairobi, Kenya, in which the latter committed itself to disarm and repatriate the FDLR, while the former agreed to seal its borders with Congo to avoid entry or exit from its territory of any reinforcements to Congolese rebel groups.
In a statement issued on Wednesday statement, Natalegawa said that the UN Security Council commended both countries for the common approach to end the threat posed to peace and stability in both countries and the Great Lakes Region.

"It is an important milestone towards the definitive settlement of the problem of illegal armed groups in the eastern part of DRC,” he said.

Estimated between 6000 and 10,000, FDLR is composed former ex-FAR and Interahamwe, which are largely blamed for the 1994 Rwanda Genocide, in which at least one million people perished in barely 100 days.

"The Council reiterates its demand that these groups lay down their arms and engage voluntarily and without preconditions in their demobilisation, repatriation, resettlement and reintegration, as appropriate,” Natalegawa said.

Apart from FDLR, eastern Congo is home to several armed groups fighting Kinshasa or other regional governments, notably Mai Mai, General Laurent Nkunda’s CNDF, FNL Palpehutu, the Lords Resistance Army, Allied Democratic Forces, among others.

Natalegawa said the Security Council recognizes that FDLR is one of the root causes of conflict in the eastern DRC and constitutes a threat to regional stability.

The Council called on Kinshasa and Kigali to implement fully their commitments in the Nairobi communiqué and to continue to cooperate to solve their common security concerns.

"The Security Council stresses its readiness to facilitate and support the implementation of these commitments, in particular through measures against additional recruits in the FDLR and ex-FAR/Interahamwe,” Natalegawa said in the statement.

The Security Council also appealed to the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Monuc) to support, within its mandate and capabilities, the measures agreed upon by both governments.

Monuc has on several occasions been accused of not doing anything to curtail the rebels’ activities in the Congo, but under the Nairobi pact the force undertook to help the Congolese government in its disarmament plan.

Congo agreed to share the plan with Rwanda by December 1.

The UN facilitated the Nairobi meeting between the two neighbouring countries, while the US and the EU both acted as observers.

President Paul Kagame said on Monday that he was optimistic the pact, which was signed by Rwandan Foreign minister Dr Charles Murigande and his Congolese counterpart Mbusa Nyamwisi, would bear fruits.

The Rwandan militias fled to DRC in 1994 following the Genocide, and are responsible for Rwanda’s intervention in its much larger neighbour in 1996 and 1998, with the latter invasion resulting in a seven-nation war, which officially ended in

ENDS