Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has said that the government of DR Congo should go to the negotiating table with the M23 rebel movement to stop hostilities in the east of the country.
Media reports on Tuesday quoted Museveni as saying during a press conference in Kampala that foreign militias, such as the ADF from Uganda, FDLR from Rwanda and RED-Tabara from Burundi based in DR Congo, will not repatriate peacefully.
“We shall force them,” he said but argued that Congolese militias should be targeted for negotiations by the government of his Congolese counterpart Felix Tshisekedi, who accuses Rwanda of backing the M23 rebels.
According to Museveni, over 120 local groups operating in eastern Congo came about because of a power vacuum in that vast region of the DR Congo.
“For the M23, it is part of the other Congolese groups; there are M23, Mai Mai, CODECO and all these local groups should be negotiated with.” he suggested.
In respect to resolutions of the November summit of regional leaders in Luanda, the M23 recently began withdrawing from some key positions in North Kivu province, a move the group said was done ”in the name of peace.”
The Luanda summit also ordered the foreign armed groups, like the ADF which launched attacks on Ugandan territory this month, to disarm and unconditionally repatriate to their countries of origin.
However, President Museveni believes the armed groups will not respect the calls.
The Ugandan army has been fighting the Islamist ADF rebels in Ituri province.
“The groups like the ADF will not come back peacefully. We shall force them,” Museveni said.
“Like we have seen recently, because we are hitting them badly in eastern Congo, recently they tried to come back through Ntoroko; you saw what happened to them the whole group was wiped out.”
CU/as/APA