Leaders of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) want the United Nations to assist in removing members of the FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda) militia being sheltered in Democratic Republic of Congo.
The call is a bleeper in the face of Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete who a few months back called for the Rwandan government to negotiate with the militia whose members are responsible for the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. Tanzania is a member of SADC.
The 15-member bloc made the appeal at the end of a two-day summit in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe on Monday.
They said the region was “generally peaceful and stable,” but appealed to the United Nations to help address the situation in the Great Lakes region.
The Democratic Republic of Congo, a Southern African Development Community member, is hoping to rid its eastern provinces of rebel groups that have kept the region in the grips of chaos and violence for years.
On the Democratic Republic of Congo, [the] summit also called upon the United Nations in co-operation with the African Union, to play its role in repatriating the FDLR elements that have voluntarily surrendered and disarmed or provide them with temporary resettlement in third countries outside the Great Lakes Region,” said Stergomena Lawrence-Tax, SADC executive secretary.
The region’s leaders noted “humanitarian assistance and malnutrition still remain a challenge” and they endorsed a 10-year regional food and nutrition security strategy to improve food security.