Rwanda Militia Commander 'Tired Of War'

A commander involved in one of Africa's longest running conflicts tells Sky News they can't give up fighting without foreign help.

By Alex Crawford, Special Correspondent

The commander of one of the Rwandan militia hiding out in the eastern Congolese mountains has told Sky News his men will not disarm without guarantees for their safety.

Colonel Bonheur - as he called himself but which is almost certainly not his real name - said his band of soldiers would be forced to continue fighting unless a political solution can be found.
Speaking from his mountain hideout, he said: "We are tired of war. We want peace. But we need the international community to step in and mediate.
"They know what they have to do and they know very well how to solve the problem. They need to pressurise Rwanda."
He said he and his men want to return to Rwanda and reform the militia as a political party.

The militia soldiers are living in straw huts in the Congolese mountains

That is unlikely to be accepted by the current President Paul Kagame, who they want to unseat.
The colonel and his unit - which he called the Tigers - are a branch of the FDLR (The Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda) - and are wanted by the United Nations for war crimes.
They are accused of being among those who tried to wipe out the Tutsis in Rwanda way back in 1994.
The genocide then has been the backbone of the region's woes ever since. Wars have led to an estimated four million people losing their lives over the past 20 years.
The FDLR militias have been blamed for continued mass killings and rapes inside the Congo ever since and their existence has led to the creation of an estimated 30 Congolese armed groups who are also responsible for atrocities, as all the different armed groups battle for control of the region.

Colonel Bonheur says the international community must intervene

Military action against the FDLR was threatened by the UN, but it was persuaded to hold off until December after South Africa and Tanzania - who are allied with Congo's Joseph Kabila - argued the militia should be given time to voluntarily surrender their weapons.
It is an option America does not believe the rebels will take.
The colonel said: "We urge the international community to take pity on us."
He insisted some of his men had surrendered and handed in their weapons but the remainder are fearful of giving up their guns because of reprisals from the Congolese.
Instead they have shifted on to the mountains with their families, where they shelter in straw huts, some with plastic sheeting but most without.
One woman said: "We are starving. We just eat leaves boiled in water."
Another man told us: "We are a people without a country now. We need help."
A global day of peace means little to these people.
Most were unaware of it and the colonel said disparagingly: "The Americans can sort peace here in an instant. They just don't want to."
He, like many others weary of the war in this region, believe the chaos and instability caused by it suits many who are plundering the country of its rich natural resources.

• Gallery: Rwanda's Long-Running Civil War

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    A child with a gun sits in a car with Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) partisans patrolling the streets of Kigali, Rwanda, on June 9, 1994
    

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    Rwandan refugees gather water from a polluted lake near the Tanzanian refugee camp of Benako on May 5, 1994. Hundreds of thousands of refugees found shelter from war-striken Rwanda in Tanzanian camps
    

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    A young French woman, repatriated from war-torn Rwanda, is overwhelmed by emotion in the arms of a relative who came to greet her at Orly Airport, France
    

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    A member of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) guards the entrance of a cell in the prison in Kibongo, southeast of Kigali, August 12, 1994
    

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    A young girl, fleeing the war-ravaged Rwandan capital, stands on the roadside, 23kms outside of Kigali, on May 27, 1994
    

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    Rwandan government soldiers fire heavy artillery at rebel positions as a third man watches through a high-power telescopic sight. June 12, 1994
    

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    A rebel soldier leaves the transitional camp near the Kisangani airport on May 4, 1997, where some 4,000 Rwandan refugees wait to be airlifted to Kigali
    

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    Displaced Tutsis wait for food at Kabgayi refugee camp, South of Kigali May 28, 1994. Some 14,000 refugees took shelter in this camp and got food every three days
    

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    UN soldiers hold defence position during a patrol in the south western Kibeho refugee camp where 2000 Hutus are held as hostages in a school and hospital complex, April 24, 1995
    

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    A Ghanaian United Nations soldier watches over some Tutsi refugees in Kigali, as they are evacuated from the Holy Family church to Kabuga on the outskirts of the Rwandan capital, June 20, 1994
    

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    An endless stream of Rwandan refugees on its way to cross to border to their homeland after leaving Zairean camps, November 15, 1996
    

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    A Rwandan child crying sat in the dirt in a refugee camp in Ruhango, some 50 km from the Rwandan capital Kigali, June 6, 1994
    

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    A French paratrooper evacuating a child from the western Rwandan region of Kibuye to protect them from fighting between the Rwandan Patriotic Front and governmental troops and massacres, mostly perpetrated by Hutu militiamen. July 10, 1994
    

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    Guerrillas from the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) go to the front line. February 13, 1993
    

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    A Zairean rebel standing amid a group of refugees, as between 5,000 and 10,000 Rwandan Hutu refugees emerge from thick forest some 40 km south of Kisangani
    

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    Wounded Rwandan children wait at the French army medical centre at the Goma airport in Zaire in July, 1994
    

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    Zairean soldiers take position along a road near Gabiro as they are fighting back rebels coming from Uganda, October 12, 1990
    

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    Some 90,000 Rwandan refugees wait to get food from the Red Cross in the Benako, Tanzania refugee camp, May 20, 1994
    

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    Newly arrived Rwandan refugees at Lula, a new camp near Kisangani, rest at the entrance of the camp, March 25, 1997
    

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    Rwandan refugees wait for food at a refugee camp in Benako, May 21, 1994
    

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    Rwandan refugees cross the Zairean border at Goma to flee the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), July 19, 1994
    

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    About 160,000 Rwandan refugees pack a makeshift camp, 10 kms north of the eastern Zairean border town of Goma, July 17, 1994
    

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    A lost Rwandan girl crying at the Gisenyi refugee aid camp, November 16, 1996
    

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