Posted on 06/21/2003 9:53:34 PM PDT by chance33_98
French-led force sets Congo gun deadline
By Matthew Green
BUNIA, Congo (Reuters) - A French-led force sent to protect civilians in the Congolese town of Bunia has set a 72-hour deadline for gunmen to leave the town where ethnic bloodletting killed hundreds last month.
The force also urged the government in Kinshasa to withdraw newly-arrived armed police reinforcements, saying they violated a peace deal.
France is supplying the bulk of the troops for the international force, which began deploying on June 6 after an appeal from the United Nations to intervene in the town where gun-toting militiamen are a common sight on the mud streets.
The commander of the force, General Jean Paul Thonier gave the deadline on Saturday at talks with Thomas Lubanga, the head of the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) militia group, which seized control from rival militiamen in May.
"The General has stipulated that there will be no weapons after 72 hours," said the spokesman for the international force, Colonel Gerard Dubois. "Weapons that remain will be confiscated," he told reporters in Bunia.
The deadline expires at 11:00 a.m. (10 a.m. British time) on Tuesday.
Dubois said Lubanga had accepted the demand to remove his gunmen from the streets, saying the French general would allow Lubanga to retain a guard for his headquarters in Bunia, the size of which had yet to be defined precisely.
The force said earlier this week it would ban all visible armed presence in the town and create a "secure zone" in Bunia, where residents say the presence of gunmen on the streets is a constant source of insecurity.
The force spokesman said French armoured vehicles would mount their first patrols through the town on Saturday.
Lubanga told Reuters he had already removed the bulk of his forces from Bunia, in the northeast of Democratic Republic of Congo, and it would only take a few hours to remove the rest.
"This deadline is already too long, the only troops remaining in town are just our bodyguards," he said. "There's no problem with the deadline."
Lubanga's UPC, the Congolese government and various other militia groups around Bunia signed a peace deal in Tanzania in May, agreeing to demilitarise Bunia.
The international force had earlier on Saturday urged the Kinshasa government to withdraw 112 armed police reinforcements sent to Bunia on Friday, saying they violated the peace deal.
WHAT ABOUT SANCTIONS!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
WHERE'S HANS?!?!?!?!?!?!
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