FDLR rebels want dialogue with DRC and Rwanda
The Rwandan Hutu rebel group the FDLR is calling for talks with the governments in Kinshasa and Kigali.
CCTV’s Kofa Mrenje who is in Eastern DRC says the rebel group says the Congolese military efforts to crush them will fail.
They have also expressed fears of reprisal should they surrender.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo launched a long awaited offensive against the FDLR rebels in the east of the country on February 26th after the rebels failed to meet a deadline to disarm in January.
The FDLR are comprised of mainly ethnic Hutus who fled Rwanda at the end of the 1994 Genocide that claimed over 800,000 lives.
The DRC government is solitary handling the operation against the rebels after the United Nations Intervention Brigade pulled out of the planned assault.
Initial reports indicated that the two sides developed disagreements when the DRC government refused to punish generals implicated in human rights violations.
The offensive was launched after a six-month grace period for the unconditional surrender of the rebels expired at the end of last year. The grace period was granted by the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC).