Congolese rebel General Laurent Nkunda speaks at his base in Kiloliwe in the Democratic Republic of Congo's north Kivu province, Oct. 11, 2006.
REUTERS/David Lewis
KINSHASA, Jan 20 (Reuters) - Fighters loyal to Laurent Nkunda, a renegade general being sought for war crimes, have begun integrating with government forces in Democratic Republic of Congo, U.N. and army officials said on Saturday.
Nkunda's forces have repeatedly stymied efforts to establish government authority in the east of the vast country, where an array of ethnic militias have murdered, robbed and raped civilians since the end of a 1998-2003 war.
"More or less 1,300 troops have so far gone through the process," said Colonel Delphin Kahimbi, the Congolese army's deputy commander in North Kivu province, where the reintegration is taking place.
A military spokesman in the province for the United Nations' 17,000-strong peacekeeping mission said the integration process was continuing.
"Most of the troops have arrived for this first phase," Major Ajay Dalal told Reuters. "When the number required to create a brigade is reached, they will begin moving out."
President Joseph Kabila, elected in Congo's first democratic polls in over 40 years, has pledged to end violence and foster national unity in a country split along ethnic faultlines.
Nkunda, a former high-ranking general in Congo's army, led two brigades into rebellion against Kabila in 2004, one year after a peace deal ended a broader conflict that killed an estimated four million people, most from hunger and disease.
In the reintegration process, the general's renegade forces, estimated at between 3,000 and 5,000 soldiers, will be mixed with Congolese army units already stationed in North Kivu.
Nkunda, who is sought under an international arrest warrant for war crimes allegedly committed during a 2004 occupation of the eastern town of Bukavu, has said he wants to rejoin the army himself, despite rumours he might seek asylum in South Africa.
