REGIONAL - Military chiefs from four regional countries are meeting in Kigali as part of their continued search for a consensus on what measure should be deployed to rout negative forces in the region. The two-day meeting started with Rwanda urging delegates to establish reasons why ex-FAR/ Interahamwe militias remain active in eastern DRC despite many diplomatic efforts to address the problem. The militias are currently grouped in what is called Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) and are based in eastern DRC. Foreign Minister Dr Charles Murigande who opened the meeting at Prime Holdings in Kimihurura said: “We want to know the reason. Is it lack of political will or lack of military capacity? We expect this meeting to come up with the answer to this question as well as solutions.” The two-day meeting is studying the first scenario that was proposed during the army commanders’ first meeting in Bujumbura, Burundi in April. They are from Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda and Uganda, and are meeting under the Tripartite Plus Joint Commission (TPJC), a diplomatic platform constituting the four nations. Created at the initiative of the US government, the forum seeks to end years of suspicion and insurgency among the four Great Lakes Region countries. The platform is also backed by the United Nations. Murigande said that TPJC was a platform to discuss regional security so that accusations between member countries can be cleared. The first of the four scenarios proposed by defence chiefs and endorsed by the TPJC Council of Ministers was the commitment of the DRC to use military force to stamp out negative forces operating on her territory. ”This meeting will discuss the implementation of this scenario and make proposals that we will be discussed in the Council of Ministers’ meeting due to take place next month in Kampala,” Murigande said. Journalists were later dismissed as the rest of the sessions were to be held behind closed doors. Murigande said that the existence of Interahamwe militias on the Congolese territory continues to pose a dangerous threat not only to Rwanda but the entire region. He called upon the defence chiefs to identify reasons why the process to rout negative forces from the DRC has been derailed. Recently the Congolese government announced that it had halted operations against FDLR, an amalgamation of elements largely blamed for the 1994 Rwanda Genocide, which claimed an estimated one million lives. Recent attacks by FDRL have left hundreds of thousands of Congolese homeless.The FDRL was blacklisted and its leaders put on a common list of wanted persons during the last TPJC Council of Ministers’ meeting in May in Lumumbashi in DRC. By the time the meeting kicked off before mid-day yesterday, military chiefs present were Rwanda’s Chief of General Staff Gen. James Kabarebe, his Congolese counterpart Gen Dieu Donnee Kayembe of DRC and Burundi’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Maj. Gen. Godfrey Niyombare. Uganda’s Chief of Defence Forces, Gen. Aronda Nyakayirima was expected to arrive later in the day. By press time, Uganda’s Ambassador to Rwanda, Richard Kabonero, was standing in for Gen. Aronda. Maj. Ronald Miller, the US military and army attaché, who facilitated the meeting, said that the member countries should take it upon themselves to solve the problem of negative forces. “The MONUC (UN Mission in Congo) are more interested in their mandate which is to protect civilians. The duty to deal with negative forces should be carried out by member states,” he said.Ends
