Nkunda hands over FDLR rebels to UN

Congolese rebel leader General Laurent Nkunda has handed over 50 war captives of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) to the UN Mission in DR Congo, Monuc.“We handed them over to MONUC because we want to prove to the UN that we are fighting FDLR who are being supported by DR Congo Government,”Nkunda’s spokesman Rene Munyarugerero said by telephone from North Kivu yesterday.Troops loyal to General Nkunda arrested the Rwandan militias over the last two weeks during renewed clashes with government forces. Nkunda accuses Congolese government troops of having FDLR rebels in their ranks.It was not possible to verify the claim with Monuc by press time.On Thursday Monuc announced a ceasefire between DRC army and Nkunda’s troops. The clashes had displaced at least 200,000 civilians from eastern DRC.Munyarugerero said Nkunda had agreed to the ceasefire. “We want peace and that is why we are returning to our original positions,” he said. “The ceasefire is in progress,” Munyarugerero added.“Our forces tried to take over Sake but UN peacekeepers convinced us to withdraw,” Munyarugerero said, adding that thousands of refugees had also started returning home.Rwanda last week pledged to mediate in the talks between Kinshasa and Nkunda.In January, Kigali helped broker a ceasefire that brought thousands of Nkunda’s fighters into mixed army brigades in what was billed as a step towards ending his three-year insurgency. But the deal didn’t last.UN chief Ban Ki-moon said in a statement Tuesday he was “deeply concerned by the ongoing armed clashes in North Kivu.” Burundi rebels walk out of talksMeanwhile, Reuters reported yesterday that Burundi rebels had refused to rejoin a truce monitoring team they quit in July unless the South African chief mediator of talks with the government is replaced.The team, comprising FNL members, government officials and South African mediators, was set up after the FNL agreed to a peace deal in September to end more than a decade of civil war that has killed 300,000 people.The Forces for National Liberation (FNL), the last active rebel group in the tiny central African country, accused Charles Nqakula of bias.“We have informed the international community that our movement is no longer accepting Charles Nqakula as mediator because he showed that he is on the government side,” FNL Spokesman, Pasteur Habimana, said.“Now we want Nqakula and all his team to be replaced”, he told Reuters by telephone from the Tanzanian city Dar es Salaam.South African officials were not immediately available for comment.Habimana accused mediators and the Burundi government of supporting an FNL splinter group which clashed this week with fighters loyal to FNL leader Agathon Rwasa.At least 20 were killed in the fighting on Tuesday in the northern Bujumbura suburb of Buterere.Government officials urged the international community to step up pressure on the FNL, whose insurgency is seen as the last barrier to lasting stability in a country emerging from ethnic conflict.“If the FNL continues to refuse joining the peace process, the international community must take sanctions against FNL leaders,” said the army’s deputy chief, Major General Godefroid Niyombare, who is also head of the government team at the joint ceasefire monitoring team.Rebels have twice walked out of the truce monitoring team.The African Union has urged the government and FNL rebels to finish their talks by the end of December this year.Ends