The Nairobi consultation team is continuing its tour of eastern DRC. Objective: to exchange with as many representatives of rebel groups, militias and other armed movements as possible before the formal resumption of talks. Among the subjects of contention: the question of the integration into the army of the rebels who would lay down their arms. For Kinshasa, it is no longer a question, and this creates frustration.
With our correspondent in Nairobi, Florence Morice
” There will be no collective integration of combatants into the national army. It’s a red line “, insists the deputy spokesman of the Congolese presidency, Giscard Kusema. This is one of the messages that the delegation on tour in the east of the country came to deliver to the armed groups, which it asks to lay down their arms.
A message received to varying degrees. ” We are disappointed “, governed Friday, May 20 Serge Losa, one of the delegates of the Patriotic Resistance Force of Ituri (FRPI). ” This is contrary to what is provided for in the agreement signed between 2020 “, he lamented, specifying that “ in these conditions “, the FRPI, present three weeks ago in Nairobi, could withdraw from the consultation process.
The FRPI’s claim is not isolated. In Nairobi, several representatives of armed groups expressed this wish. Kinshasa argues that in the past, these collective reintegrations of rebels into the army did not lead to anything good. ” The population is fed up », Explains a source at the presidency, without forgetting that the diplomatic, military and financial partners of the DRC are firmly opposed to it.
” If there are refractories “, it is ” the military component who will take care of them, explains this source at the presidency in reference to the regional force announced in April and whose contours remain to be drawn.
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