Rights group opposes wording of Rwanda peace plan

KIGALI, Rwanda (CNN) -- A pending agreement between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo misidentifies the Rwandan rebels at the core of the conflict between the two nations, a misstep that could prevent true peace, a human rights group told CNN Wednesday.

Most of those rebels -- Hutu forces that Rwanda wants the Congo to disarm and repatriate -- were not soldiers and militiamen involved in Rwanda's 1994 genocide, but "post-genocide" recruits, said Francois Grignon of the International Crisis Group, which does extensive research on Africa's Great Lakes region.

"It's very, very important not to describe them the way it has been done in the agreement," Grignon said. "Only the minority are ex-FAR and Interahamwe. As many as 80 percent are post-genocide recruits, men who left Rwanda as late as 1999 or 2000."

FAR -- the Forces Armees Rwandais -- was the army in control of Rwanda when the genocide began. The Interahamwe were militias mobilized to carry it out. As many as 800,000 lives were lost in the genocide.

Grignon said that to describe the Rwandan rebels in the Congo as ex-FAR and Interahamwe would eliminate the possibility of a political settlement with them.

Senior Rwandan officers from the current armed forces, which is dominated by the Tutsi minority in Rwanda, have acknowledged the current composition of the Hutu rebels, he said.

The agreement reached in South Africa earlier this week calls for the withdrawal of Rwandan troops from Congo territory in return for the Congo ending its support for the Rwandan Hutu rebels hiding there and sending them home. The pact is awaiting the signatures of the nations' leaders.

Rwanda has some 20,000 or more troops in the Congo, fighting some 25,000 Hutu rebels and their families.