Laurent Nkunda has taken a stand point which is that until DR Congo disarms the Rwandan Hutu rebels, it will not enjoy true peace. One may wonder, why he has taken this stand point, but his reasons are simple.
Nkunda believes that the Hutu militias who killed over a million of his Tutsi people are now armed as Congolese soldiers and still kill his people. He claims that the genocide is still on and his people were not protected, have not being protected and are not being protected.
Laurent Nkunda is a Tutsi who still holds resentment for the people of the Hutu tribe, not just because his people were slain in hundreds of thousands during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda but because they are still being slain by the Hutus today.
The self acclaimed General sees himself as a guardian of the peace and the only man who can protect his Tutsi community. The general may be fighting to protect his people from genocide, but his humanitarian intentions have been smeared with his inhumane actions.
According to the international community Nkunda must be tried for war crimes and human rights abuses, but Nkunda believes that if he is locked away, his people would be left at the mercy of the Hutus.
Even though the international community has offered to protect the Tutsi people from the Hutus, Nkunda says he couldn’t trust his people into the hands of the UN, because the UN had failed to protect them during and after the 1994 genocide.
After the genocide, many Hutu militias ran to Congo where they were given a haven and incorporated into the Congolese army from where they have continued their atrocities against the Tutsis.
Independent investigations did confirm that there have been some attacks on Tutsi communities in Congo over the years by the Hutus in the Congolese army.
Nkunda wants these Hutu Congolese soldiers disarmed.
General Nkunda has however gone about his quest that has led many to believing that it is all a pretext. Many observers say his real objective is not the protection of the Tutsi people but a quest for power. He has been accused of committing atrocities in 2002 as a commander in the diamond-rich town of Kisangani.
Similar charges were also made after his forces captured the Congolese town of Bukavu in 2004.
