Two major rebel commanders have been captured and sent to the DRC capital Kinshasa for detailed cross examination about their motives of staging a rebellion in the gold-rich Northeastern Province of Ituri.
Tseni Adrionzi and Joseph Amula Alias Kesta, the most influential leaders of the armed group known as the Cooperative for the Development of Congo (CODECO), were captured by the Congolese army, FARDC, two weeks ago in Alla, in the Walendu Pitsi sector.
It is not the first time these same rebel commanders have been arrested in combat and sent to prison. It did happen during President Joseph Kabila’s government.
They always broke-out of prison and returned to the bush to command their fighters.
The two men have been held for days in Djugu town but were on Sunday airlifted to Kinshasa under the supervision of the acting commander of the FARDC operational sector in Ituri, General Yav Avul and the Provincial Head of Civil Intelligence.
According to security sources, these repeat offenders constitute the brain of this armed militia at the base of the hundreds of civilian deaths in several villages in the territory of Djugu.
CODECO militia group is responsible for the deaths of 160 civilians last June and the fleeing of over 300,000 people in Djugu.
The Congolese army began an offensive in January against this CODECO notorious militia resulting into surrender of over 200 militiamen to government forces.
“We have been hitting them…When we neutralize them, they remind us of the rights that they violate, a quite complicated situation. But to avoid fire, they should calmly assemble at the transit site in [the town of] Kpandroma,” General Chiviri Hamuli, the Army’s Provincial Commander in Ituri said.
The transfer of the two rebel commanders, according to security sources, is to allow the national authorities to deepen the investigations into the atrocities of Djugu of which they are accused of.
Raymond Tseni and Joseph Amula have already been arrested several times and detained in Bunia central prison for participating in insurrectional movements in Ituri since 1999.
They had always managed to escape from prison or receive a presidential pardon.
