THE UN says it has deployed at least 16,000 troops against rebels fighting Rwanda and other neighbouring governments.Ambassador William Lacy Swing, the head of the UN Mission in DR Congo (Monuc) said yesterday that the deployment would enhance the disarmament of the foreign rebel groups in the east of DRC and their repatriation to their respective home countries.

"We have deployed 90 per cent of 17,000 of our forces to eastern (DR) Congo,” Swing told a news conference in Kampala.

He had addressed delegations from Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, DRC and the African Union (AU) at the ongoing Tripartite Plus Joint Commission (TPJC) meeting. He said the decision was intended to mount pressure on the rebels, referred to as negative forces, under the TPJC framework.

Swing said UN had deployed a full battalion Brigade in Ituri, and reinforced three Battalion Brigades in North Kivu and the other three in South Kivu.

He also said a small Battalion Brigade had been deployed in Kitenge.

He said they were using all means including legal, political and military approaches to get all foreign armed groups to their respective homes.

The rebels include the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a merger group composed of militias and former soldiers responsible for 1994 Rwanda Genocide in which over a million people were killed.

Swing said thousands of Interahamwe militias and former Rwandan forces, and their families had been repatriated back home in a five-year disarmament process in the east of the vast equatorial country.

He said the fighting particularly in North Kivu had displaced more people than Darfur in excess of 600,000.

The Monuc chief also said the increased deployment was because "we are concerned there is a lot of unnecessary suffering of Congolese”.

"Government (Kinshasa) is being distracted by unfinished business,” Swing said.

If the region is to progress and retain peace, he added, unfinished business (disarmament) should be finished.

He however declined to give a timeframe within which the disarmament exercise would be concluded, saying that the ongoing TPJC meeting together with Monuc would reach a common position on when all the negative groups would be disbanded.

He said the presence of negative forces in eastern DRC had derailed a three-year transition to prepare a republican army.

During the transition, all Congolese rebel groups were supposed to demobilise, disarm and integrate into the official army or join civilian ranks.

On allegations that certain sections within Monuc had warm relationship with the Rwandan rebels, Swing said his organisation had no evidence to the effect.

"We have had those allegations about collaboration between some members of MONUC and FDLR but we have no proof,” he denied.

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