Rwandan and Ugandan troops deployed in Democratic Republic of Congo to fight rebels will return home by the end of February, Congolese President Joseph Kabila told journalists in the capital Kinshasa today.
Thousands of soldiers from Congo's eastern Great Lakes neighbours, which attacked the giant central African country in a 1998-2003 war, launched joint operations with the Congolese army in December and early January.
"It was a difficult decision, but a decision was needed . . . The deadline must certainly not go beyond the month of February," Kabila said.
More than 3,500 Rwandan soldiers crossed over the border into Congo's war-ravaged province of North Kivu this month at Kabila's invitation to pursue the rebel Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).
The presence of the mainly Hutu FDLR, some of whose members carried out the 1994 Rwandan genocide in which around 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred, is seen as at the root of continuing conflict in Congo's troubled east.
Around 1,300 Ugandan troops began attacking Lord's Resistance Army bases in Congo's northeastern Orientale Province on Dec. 14, aiming to wipe out the Ugandan rebels after their leader, Joseph Kony, again refused to sign a peace deal.
Kabila's decision to allow foreign troops to operate in Congo, just five years after the war's official end, marked a dramatic turnaround in its relations with Uganda and Rwanda.
Kinshasa still has no formal diplamtic relations with the two countries, and the young president has come under heavy criticism from political opponents and allies for the move.
Reuters