Rwanda grants rebel leader asylum

Mutebutsi and his men fled to Rwanda in June 2004

Rwanda has officially granted refugee status to one of the rebel leaders who took the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo town of Bukavu in June last year.

Col Jules Mutebutsi has declared in writing that he has given up his armed struggle, Rwanda's Interior Minister Protrais Musoni told AFP.

He belonged to the Rwanda-backed RCD rebel group which fought the Kinshasa government in a five-year civil war.

His rebellion threatened DR Congo's shaky peace process.

Under the 2002 deal, former rebel groups were supposed to integrate into the new national army.

At the time of Bukavu's capture, Congolese President Joseph Kabila accused Rwanda of being behind the attack but this was denied by Rwanda.

Whereabouts unknown

Col Mutebutsi and about 300 of his men fled to Rwanda a year ago and gave up their arms, after being driven out of Bukavu by the Congolese army.

Q&A: DR Congo conflict

"The Rwandan government has given them [Col Mutebutsi and his men] asylum-seeker status," Mr Musoni said on Thursday.

Under international law, Rwanda had to help such people, he said.

"We have spoken to them and they have declared in writing that they have renounced their armed struggle," he added.

The whereabouts of Col Mutebutsi's renegade ally, Gen Laurent Nkunda, is not known.

Gen Nkunda said he invaded Bukavu to protect his fellow ethnic Banyamulenges from being targeted and killed by the Congolese army, but the UN dismissed his claims that he was preventing a genocide.

The Banyamulenge are ethnic Tutsis, who have lived in DR Congo for several generations but who retain ties to Rwanda.

An estimated three million people in Congo were killed during the five-year civil war, which sucked in several neighbouring countries.