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Nkunda warns Africa not to send troops against him
Mon Nov 10, 2008 7:26am EST
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By Hereward Holland
GOMA, Congo (Reuters) - Congolese rebel leader Laurent Nkunda said on Monday he would fight African peacekeepers if they backed government troops against him, as more regional states joined efforts to try to end the conflict.
African leaders from the south of the continent and the Great Lakes region have offered peacekeepers if necessary to try to stabilize east Democratic Republic of Congo, where recent fighting has displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians.
The upsurge in fighting in Congo's North Kivu province bordering Rwanda and the growing involvement of neighboring states in moves to end it have raised fears of a repeat of the 1998-2003 Congo war that sucked in armies from the region.
Countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) said after a regional summit in South Africa on Sunday the group would send military advisers to help the government of Congolese President Joseph Kabila.
SADC would send a peacekeeping force to east Congo "if and when necessary," its executive secretary Tomaz Salamao said.
Nkunda, whose Tutsi rebels are battling Congolese government soldiers (FARDC) and their Rwandan Hutu rebel (FDLR) and Mai-Mai militia allies, said he would welcome African peacekeepers if they were coming as an impartial force to pacify North Kivu.
But, speaking to Reuters by telephone from eastern Congo, he added: "If they come in and fight alongside the FARDC and the FDLR, they will be weakened, they will share the same shame as the DRC government.."
"If SADC engages like this, they will have made a mistake ... I am ready to fight them," Nkunda said.
The United Nations, which already has its largest peacekeeping force in the world, 17,000 strong, in Congo, is seeking up to 3,000 extra troops to reinforce its operations there. It says its existing force is thinly stretched across a country the size of Western Europe where armed groups abound.
It was not immediately clear whether the proposed African peacekeepers would operate under U.N. mandate or separately.
The North Kivu fighting has already taken on a regional dimension as Rwanda, which has twice invaded Congo before, officially to fight Hutu rebels there, is accused by Kinshasa of supporting Nkunda. Kigali denies this.
A summit of Great Lakes leaders including Rwandan President Paul Kagame called in Nairobi on Friday for a ceasefire and a political settlement in North Kivu, but said that they could send peacekeepers if required.
Commenting on Sunday's SADC offer of troops, Rwandan Foreign Minister Rosemary Museminali told Reuters: "When we left the meeting in Nairobi, the direction was that there should be ceasefire and a political solution."
ANGOLA DENIES ITS TROOPS IN CONGO
Congo's government has again called on southern neighbor Angola, which backed it during the 1998-2003 war, for help. Continued...
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