One of Congo's fiercest warlords sent a delegation on Sunday to meet with members of the government on the first day of peace talks in the provincial outpost of Goma. The delegation of 10 rebels loyal to Laurent Nkunda, who commands an army of over 1,000 men, arrived in Goma under the guard of U.N. troops. The rebels had declared a cease-fire last week in advance of the peace conference. A spokesman for the delegation said its No. 1 concern is the continued presence in Congo of an extremist Hutu militia, who fled to the forested hills of eastern Congo after being chased out of neighboring Rwanda, where the militiamen are accused of orchestrating the 1994 genocide of half a million Tutsis. Nkunda is himself a Tutsi and claims that he is fighting for the protection of Congo's Tutsi population. Congo's government has labeled him an enemy of the state and late last year, launched a military offensive to force Nkunda's men out of the jungle. That offensive was a failure and the army was forced to retreat, leaving Nkunda's rebels emboldened. Upon arriving in Goma, Ngeve Kambasa, a spokesman for Nkunda, said their key concern is the presence of the so-called Democratic Front for the Liberation of Rwanda, or FDLR, the Hutu militia. These men are wanted in Rwanda for crimes against humanity and should be forced to return to face justice there and not allowed to set up a base here, he said. «We have come for peace, but we need to first resolve the problem of the FDLR before we can have peace,» Kambasa told The Associated Press.
