CONGO: UN peacekeepers and government soldiers destroyed a remote rebel base in eastern Congo in their latest operation to pressure Rwandan gunmen to lay down their guns and return home peacefully.
More than 1,000 Guatemalan special forces soldiers, Pakistani commandos and Congolese government troops were airlifted to a hilltop rebel headquarters, which they searched for weapons and then torched to the ground on Wednesday.
The raid was initiated days after some 1,000 rebels had fled into the nearby forests. There were no reports of casualties.
"The general strategy is to put them under a lot of pressure to take them away from the population and to isolate them," Gen Ali Khan Shujaat, commander of the UN Pakistani forces in south Kivu, said as 100 huts were being torched in the rebel camp, 45km west of the city of Bukavu.
"They will have to leave - we left them no options," he added, referring to the 10,000 rebels based in eastern Congo.
Rwandan Hutu rebels, known as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), have operated in the region since many took part in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, during which 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed. After a decade of preying on Congolese civilians and following a series of massacres in eastern Congo this year, they are under increasing pressure to fulfil a promise made in March this year to disarm and go home.
Rwanda has invaded eastern Democratic Republic of Congo twice saying it wanted to neutralise the rebels, fuelling a conflict compounded by disagreements over power and resources.
The UN force does not have a mandate to disarm the rebels, but peacekeepers say Wednesday's operation is the latest in a series aimed at disrupting rebel control of farming areas, gold mines and extortion rackets used to maintain the FDLR.
So far, the FDLR has complied with UN ultimatums to vacate bush camps, there have been no gun battles and the Congolese villagers have been happy to see the arrival of the peacekeepers, long accused of standing by while civilians bore the brunt of Congo's wars.
Muendwa Kahegesha, a young Congolese boy, told UN peacekeepers: "We hope you will stay here for our security . . . They [ the FDLR] stole my clothes . . . they even killed my father."