Joy, doubts in Congo after rebel chief’s arrest

KIBATI – Congo said on Saturday it had received no official response to its request for the extradition of Tutsi rebel Laurent Nkunda, whose arrest was greeted by Congolese with a mixture of relief and scepticism.

Nkunda, who had led a Tutsi rebellion in Congo’s east since 2004 and is wanted for war crimes, was detained late on Thursday during joint military operations against Rwandan Hutu rebels along the two countries’ common border. The offensive, which began earlier last week in Congo’s North Kivu province, has seen the deployment of more than 3 500 Rwandan troops to take on Rwandan Hutu rebels who have been central to 15 years of conflict in eastern Congo.
The operations have marked a radical shift in relations between the two countries and the United States welcomed the arrest of Nkunda as a ‘step on the road to peace’.
However, many of those who have survived Congo’s 1998-2003 war, which saw Rwanda’s army fight alongside various anti-Kinshasa rebels and is estimated to have killed some 5 million people, received the news with mixed emotions.
‘I heard it on the radio. But I haven’t seen him yet, and I don’t know if it is true,’ said Bagambe Rushago, who now lives in a sprawling city of banana leaf huts which sprang up during Nkunda’s advance on Goma, North Kivu’s provincial capital, late last year.
‘I hope its true. That would be a good thing – bombs were falling. Nkunda’s soldiers were firing directly into the camp,’ he said in the camp, which houses 12 000 displaced people. Nkunda’s men stopped short of Goma and forced President Joseph Kabila’s government into direct talks. Splits then emerged within his Tutsi rebel National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) group and Nkunda became isolated.
Nkunda and his fighters are accused of mass killings, rapes and the recruitment of child soldiers. International Criminal Court prosecutors have a war crimes arrest warrant for Bosco Ntaganda, Nkunda’s deputy who led the split.
The ICC has declined to say whether Nkunda would be prosecuted but Congo was quick to call for his extradition from Rwanda, which once backed Nkunda.
‘We are waiting for the Rwandans to contact us on this,’ Congolese Information Minister Lambert Mende said on Saturday. – Nampa-Reuters