UN "Concerned" that Hutu Rebels in Congo and Burundi's FNL Collaborate, Trip by PBC Is On, to Meet FNL

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/pbc1burundi050808.html

UNITED NATIONS, May 8 -- The UN says it is concerned that a group charged with the Rwanda genocide is now assisting the main rebel group in neighboring Burundi. In a sparsely attended meeting Thursday of the UN Peacebuilding Commission, UN peacekeeping official Kevin Kennedy expressed "grave concern" that "the FDLR may be collaborating with the FNL." The FDLR, in English the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, is comprised of ethnic Hutu from Rwanda, and is a group blacklisted by regional countries and the U.S. as a terrorist organization. The FNL is the "Party for the Liberation of the Hutu People - National Liberation Forces," which just last month attacked the Burundian capital, leading the UN Peacebuilding Commission to cancel its visit planned for April 19 through 24.

At Thursday's meeting, the PBC's chairman for Burundi, Johan Lovald of Norway, proposed proceeding with a visit from May 13 to 16, including possible meeting with the FNL. The representative of South Africa, which has for some time been facilitating the unconsummated peace talks in Burundi, discouraged any meeting with the FNL. Others called the FNL a "stakeholder," which is hard to dispute. Whether the UN's expressed concerns that the FNL may be collaborating with the FDLR, which the UN is supposed to be chasing out of Eastern Congo, remains to be seen.

Inner City Press asked the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, and then the UN Spokesperson's Office, for a copy of Mr. Kennedy's remarks, but none was provided by deadline. His comments, however, were taped, along with his disclosure that on May 6, the UN Department of Safety and Security raised Burundi to threat phase 4. Still the visit will proceed, Ambassador Lovald said, urging Committee members to check for their "tickets and per diem" with the director of the Peacebuilding Support Office, Eloho Otobo. The UN's head of Peacebuilding, Carolyn McAskie, is slated to leave soon. In a potentially troubling sign, her replacement has not been named, nor has the replacement of the head of peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno, with whom Inner City Press caught up later on Thursday, praising Kevin Kennedy's not-provided presentation. Developing.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/pbc1burundi050808.html