FDLR has two months to disarm - Monusco chief

Military action is inevitable if the January 2, 2015, deadline for voluntary disarmament and surrender of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) militia elapses with the group still defiant, a top UN official reiterated yesterday. Martin Kobler, head of the UN Stabilisation Mission in the DR Congo (Monusco), told UN Security Council (UNSC) that the lack of progress in the preferred voluntary disarmament and surrender of FDLR will mean “taking the fight to the jungle.” Kobler said: “Taking this fight to the jungle will be long and difficult. It will result in many casualties. I, for one, do not want to see that. But it is up to the FDLR to prevent this scenario.” “They have two months and six days left to disarm unconditionally, and go to Kisangani transit camp as envisaged by the Government of DR Congo, or leave the country. On January 2, there will be no excuse for further delay. The credibility of the UN, the Congolese government and the region are at stake.” Last week, regional defence and foreign affairs ministers reiterated military force should be used against the militia if it has not surrendered by January 2, 2015. This was during the third joint ministerial International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) and Southern African Development Community meeting in Angola. This mid-term review ministerial conference, among others, observed that there had not been progress concerning the expected voluntary disarmament and surrender of FDLR – a Genocidal militia whose members planned and perpetrated the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. Despite both voluntary and forceful repatriation of scores in the past few years, the militia’s nucleus remains intact in eastern DR Congo’s jungles. They have been there for the past 20 years – often wrecking havoc, pillaging and raping girls and women, among others, with impunity. Kigali maintains that FDLR’s genocide ideology, a real threat, remains intact and their aim is to return to Rwanda violently to ‘finish the job.’ October 2 marked the half-way point of the six-month timeframe for the voluntary surrender of the FDLR as set out by the joint ICGLR-SADC meeting of Ministers of Defence on July 2. “We all share the same objective; to neutralise FLDR, and the same conviction; that the path of nonviolence is the best option. We all agree, as expressed in Luanda, that the FLDR has to voluntarily disarm by January 2, 2015,” Kobler said. In the past, regional heads of state and government in their second mini-summit of August 14, in Luanda, and the 34th SADC summit of August 17-18 in Zimbabwe, gave a six-month ultimatum for the voluntary disarmament and surrender of FDLR. In October, the UNSC rejected any calls for political dialogue with the FDLR and reaffirmed the need to arrest and bring to justice those responsible for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

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FDLR has two months to disarm - Monusco chief