Another top FDLR commander defects

Hardly a month after the defection of the Deputy Commander of the Reserve Forces Battalion of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) militia, another top member of the group has defected.Capt. Eraste Nshimiyimana abandoned the armed outfit last week and is now undertaking reintegration courses at Mutobo Rehabilitation Centre, where he joined about 300 fellow ex-combatants who returned earlier.Before defecting from the outlawed group, Nshimiyimana, 44, was in charge of welfare and discipline. He left Rwanda in 1994.The ex-combatant said that he abandoned the group because it was getting weaker and had lost focus.“We mostly depended on food cultivated by our families but the numbers are growing smaller because most people have abandoned the rebellion,” he told The Sunday Times.Nshimiyimana said he noticed that it was no longer necessary to fight a senseless war and keep wasting time in the Congo jungles.His four children and wife returned in February 2012. He said his family members and friends kept sending him encouraging messages and asked him to return.In an interview with this newspaper, Jean Marie Turabumukiza, the Deputy Director at Mutobo centre, said that over 10,000 former mmbers of the FDLR had so far been integrated through the centre since its establishment in 2001.