Africa-Press – Rwanda. Twirwaneho, a self-defence armed group of the Congolese community of Banyamulenge, has pulled out of the Nairobi peace talks, citing fresh attacks on civilians by other militias in eastern DR Congo.
Twirwaneho said attacks by Mai Mai militias on Wednesday, November 30 killed several civilians and others were injured in villages of Gakangara, Muliza and Biziba, in the South Kivu province.
Twirwaneho said the attackers were from the Mayi Mayi coalition of Bishambuke, Yakutumba, Ilunga Rusesema and RED-Tabara, a Congo-based Burundian militia.
Violence against Kinyarwanda-speaking Congolese communities has escalated, since the resurgence of the M23 rebels, who launched an offensive on the government forces in May.
The third round of peace talks between the Congolese government and tens of armed armed groups resumed earlier this week in the Kenyan capital at the facilitation of the East Africa Community (EAC).
In a letter addressed to Uhuru Kenyatta, the facilitator of the EAC-led Nairobi peace process, the Banyamulenge representatives said on Thursday that they were withdrawing for the talks after their hopes for peace were dimmed by “a plan for ethnic cleaning.”
The United Nations Advisor on Genocide Prevention, Alice Wairimu Nderitu said recently that there were “warning signs” of atrocity crimes in eastern DR Congo, where various abuses have targeted the Banyamulenge.
“The Banyamulenge Community has been facing a plan of ethnic cleansing in the middle and highlands of the territories of Fizi, Mwenga /Itombwe and Uvira since April 2017 to date,” Twirwaneho said in the statement signed by six representatives.
“These forces that kill the Banyamulenge have only one objective, that of erasing us from the ethnic map of our country, to see us leave, as they often keep saying. This has been fuelled by unprecedented hate speech even by some politicians with total impunity.”
Twirwaneho said the assailants, who are represented in Nairobi, “are not in the logic of peace,” adding that they had sabotaged the regional efforts to restore peace in the troubled eastern DR Congo region.
For nearly three decades, eastern Congolese provinces of South Kivu, North Kivu and Ituri have remained the home of over 120 local and foreign armed groups, who are accused of various abuses.
Twirwaneho asked for the exclusion of the attacking militias and demanded the Kinshasa government to “neutralise” all foreign armed groups, including RED-Tabara.”
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