DRC: Rebel Seeks Ceasefire

From Reuters

Congolese renegade General Laurent Nkunda called for another ceasefire on Wednesday between his soldiers and government troops, saying he was ready to start integrating his fighters once again into the national army.

The announcement was a sudden about-face by the rebel leader, who abandoned a previous month-old U.N.-brokered ceasefire on Monday amid renewed fighting in Democratic Republic of Congo's eastern North Kivu province.

"We want a ceasefire ... I'm looking for our partner MONUC (the U.N. mission in the Congo) to push the government forces to a ceasefire," Nkunda told Reuters by telephone from North Kivu.

He said he was ready to resume the integration of his fighters into the Congolese national army, as demanded by President Jospeh Kabila's government and the United Nations as part of efforts to pacify the vast, former Belgian colony.

Nkunda, who led a 2004 rebellion to protect Congo's Tutsi minority in the ethnically-mixed east, accuses Kabila of supporting Rwandan Hutu rebels -- ethnic enemies of the Tutsi.

His call for a ceasefire came after the army's top commander in North Kivu said government soldiers had retaken three villages, killing 20 rebels in two days of clashes.

"Their bombs are falling on the population. If this continues there will be many losses among the population," Nkunda said, referring to the government offensive.

The government had given Nkunda until Oct. 19 to start sending his troops back for integration into mixed army brigades -- a process agreed in a January peace deal which fell apart in August when the general's men deserted the units in droves.

Nkunda said he was ready to send an initial 500 of his fighters to be progressively integrated into the mixed brigades.

He offered no casualty estimates from the recent fighting.

But earlier, General Vainqueur Mayala, the army's top commander in North Kivu, said government forces had recaptured the villages of Karuba, Humure, and Ngungu.

"On the ground, we saw around 20 bodies abandoned by the insurgents," Mayala said.

Asked about media reports that 100 fighters had been killed, including 16 government soldiers, Mayala said no army troops had died in the operations.

Congo's U.N. peacekeeping mission said on Wednesday six government soldiers had been wounded in the battles, but there was no independent confirmation of the death toll put forward by Mayala. A Nkunda spokesman disputed the figure.

In the recent fighting, artillery and machinegun fire has forced hundreds of families from their homes, worsening a humanitarian crisis in North Kivu where some 370,000 have fled fighting so far this year.

The province, which borders with Uganda and Rwanda, saw two weeks of heavy clashes in August and early September.

Kabila denies supporting the Rwandan Hutu rebels in North Kivu, who are accused of involvement in Rwanda's 1994 genocide that saw the slaughter of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

MONUC has placed responsibility for the renewed clashes in the province squarely on Nkunda and warned that, though it favours a negotiated solution, it had not ruled out force.