DRC Foreign Minister labels FDLR a “Cancer”

GASABO - Alexis Thambwe Mwamba, DR Congo’s Foreign Minister Wednesday labelled the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), as a cancer bequeathed to them by the international community. He was responding to reporters’ questions shortly after he and three other ministers of the Tripartite Plus Joint Commission finished signing the final communiqué of the latest session at Prime Holdings, Kigali. “The FDLR is a cancer that the international community left us with in Congo without the ability to solve the problem,” Mwamba said, admitting that DR Congo too was a victim of the rebels and reiterated his government’s commitment to deal with “the problem.” The FDLR, remnants of the ex-FAR and Interahamwe militia who spearheaded the 1994 Genocide against Tutsis, later fled into neighbouring DR Congo where they continue to wreck havoc – pillaging, killing, raping and breaking up families. The just concluded Tripartite Plus Joint Commission meeting aimed at reviewing progress in the elimination of the security threat posed to the entire region by illegal armed groups in DR Congo’s volatile eastern region. Foreign ministers from Rwanda, DR Congo, Uganda, and Burundi, in their final communiqué, called for urgent implementation of the Security Council’s resolution 1804 which authorises travel and financial sanctions on FDLR leaders, urging a quick and full implementation of all its provisions. They also endorsed last week’s joint communiqué between Rwanda and DR Congo that adopted a joint operational military strategy to deal with the FDLR and a commitment from DR Congo to re-establish diplomatic relations with the other three countries early next year. “Today, we are determined to partake in eliminating this problem,” he added, pointing to the recently endorsed joint military plan against the militia as confirmation, underscoring that FDLR are presently their main concern too. “FDLR is a priority on the military plan because it is on our soil that the biggest number of rapes of women and young girls is done. It is on our soil that there are killings like the most recent ones that happened in Kiwanja,” Mwamba said. Acknowledging the lack of political will as the obstacle in the past, Rwanda’s Rosemary Museminali preferred to underline “present opportunities.” “We feel that on Rwanda’s part we put in place what we needed to put in place, which was the atmosphere for these people to return,” she said, adding that the current momentum was positive. “We are talking of a joint plan to deal with FDLR, we are talking of identifying ways and means of curtailing their capability of being able to make war,” she said, saying that all the present achievements are pushing in the right direction. The facilitators, who included the US government, were well represented and Karl E. Wycoff, the US Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for East and Central Africa, said there is a desire by the international community “to aggressively pursue” the FDLR. “We (the US) are, likewise, with our partners on the Security Council engaged in a process, I would say one that is aggressive as it can be, to look at ways to limit their activities and to bring sanctions upon them,” he noted. Ends

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DRC Foreign Minister labels FDLR a “Cancer”