Politics

Gen. Kabarebe Should Have Eliminated FDLR While Managing DRC Security – Envoy

DRC’s Permanent envoy to the United Nations Ambassador, Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, on Thursday told the United Nations Security Council that Gen. James Kabarebe should have eliminated the FDLR while he was still in charge of security of entire DRC.

According to Amb. Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, Rwanda uses “the FDLR as a pretext” to plunder the natural resources of the DRC.

Amb.Nzongola-Ntalaja argues that Gen. James Kabarebe was in charge of the security of the entire DRC when President Laurent-Désiré Kabila took power, and that he therefore had the leisure to get rid of the FDLR at that time.

He also adds that President Joseph Kabila also allowed Rwanda army to “enter the DRC and solve the problem of the FDLR. And again, they didn’t.”

He was reacting to remarks made by Rwanda’s Diplomat that the presence of the FDLR in the DRC creates insecurity in Rwanda.

The FDLR are largely composed of perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi which claimed a million lives. The FDLR has been launching attacks on Rwandan soil killing several civilians and destroying, and looting property.

The FDLR has for decades received protection and cover by the DRC Army and have occasionally formed alliance with MONUSCO and FARDC to fight the M23 rebels.

However, for Amb. Nzongola-Ntalaja Kigali uses the FDLR as a pretext for plundering the natural resources of the DRC. He pegs no evidence to his claims.

The recent resurfacing of the M23 rebels in Eastern DRC has refueled a prolonged battle of accusations between Kinshasa and Kigali. Kinshasa insists that Kigali supports M23 rebellion in Eastern Congo.

Kigali has repeatedly rejected the accusations and said it is a domestic matter and a responsibility of Kinshasa to handle.

According to him, the Nairobi process will be fully relaunched to take charge of the “armed group” situation in the east of the country.

“All these national armed groups must lay down their arms and join the PDDDR-CS process. As for foreign armed groups, in addition to laying down their arms, Amb.Nzongola-Ntalaja said that they must return to their countries.

The Congolese top Diplomat then says that Rwanda is one of the signatory countries of the Addis Ababa Framework Agreement which prohibits the destabilization of a member country of the region. Meanwhile, the war between the FARDC and the M23 is tearing the eastern DRC apart.

According to him, this unacceptable situation of aggression which undermines the efforts to strengthen confidence and the positive dynamic which was beginning to settle in the Great Lakes region. “It has to stop,” he argued.

In addition, the representative of the DRC called on the Council to ask Rwanda and “its M23” to leave this eastern part of Congolese territory without delay.

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