RWANDA: Rwandan President Paul Kagame says renegade Tutsi general has legitimate political grievance

Rwandan President Paul Kagame called on Monday (September 10) for a political deal to end fighting in eastern Congo and said a renegade Tutsi general there had legitimate political grievances. The Democratic Republic of Congo's army and rebel General Laurent Nkunda are maintaining an uneasy four-day-old ceasefire in North Kivu province, the scene of heavy fighting between the two sides in the last two weeks. Nkunda, who first led a revolt in 2004, says he is fighting to protect his Tutsi people in east Congo against attacks by largely Hutu FDLR Rwandan rebels accused of involvement in Rwanda's 1994 genocide. Kagame made clear he believed Nkunda should be viewed differently to the FDLR which he said was "guilty of genocide". "You see some people are even trying in the Congo to raise the FDLR, these genocidal forces, for example, to the level of Nkunda, and saying, trying to equate it. I don't think Nkunda, whatever wrongs he has done, could be equated to FDLR in the sense that this man Nkunda, like him or not and with whatever mistakes you could hold him accountable for, he has some political grievances that are legitimate and his own people who are being exterminated in the same way as these FDLR people did in Rwanda," he said. U.K.-based Amnesty International said on Monday Nkunda was accused of war crimes and urged the international community and Rwanda and Congo to work together to bring him to justice. Kagame's government has been pressing Congolese President Joseph Kabila to disband and expel the FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda). Nkunda accuses Kabila's government of directly supporting the FDLR insurgents. "FDLR is possible, is something we certainly are concerned about and we will not relent on raising these issues and others with the people concerned, the government, the UN, the others in the region, we will not relent," Kagame added. Rwanda has twice invaded Congo, ostensibly to hunt the FDLR. The last invasion led to a 1998-2003 war there that killed some four million people, mostly from hunger and disease. "We cannot decide for the Congolese. We just raise these views and we also air our concerns because their situation affects us. But ultimately it is the Congolese to really decide which way they go and resolve their problems. But very clearly this is a problem that needs political solution," Kagame told a news conference in the Rwandan capital Kigali. The worsening fighting in North Kivu forced thousands of civilians to flee their homes. In the Mugunga camp, the population has more than tripled in just weeks. More than 30,000 people are now squeezed into this squalid settlement perched on volcanic rock. "We didn't have any time to pack anything by the time we saw the soldiers on the hills. We had to flee and we could only get the children together and some clothes and a few cooking pits," said displaced woman, Ndoni Sana. Amnesty International said it was receiving reports of rapes and killings of civilians, that recruitment of child soldiers was continuing and there was a danger the violence could develop into a renewal of mass ethnic killings and other abuses.

ITN Source | September 13, 2007

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