KAMPALA/ PARIS, Oct 30: Congolese rebel leader Laurent Nkunda said on Thursday that UN forces could prevent him from seizing Goma warning his troops will return fire if shot at in the strife-torn regional capital.

“MONUC cannot refuse me to go to Goma,” he said on phone in English. “They are incapable of securing the people of Goma so how can they refuse me to go there.

“They cannot refuse me, I can go anywhere in Congo. I am a man of Congo.” The rebel leader was speaking from the Masisi district of eastern Congo, where his National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) forces are headquartered.

Nkunda said he did not wish to engage in a direct confrontation with UN peacekeepers.

“We will respect MONUC. We cannot engage them, but if they shoot at us, they are soldiers, we will have to defend ourselves,” he said.

Nkunda said that the inhabitants of Nord-Kivu were still vulnerable to what he said were atrocities committed by Congolese forces and an allied Rwandan Hutu rebel group and argued he would have to take control of Goma if MONUC proved unable to protect civilians there.

“If MONUC is incapable of securing Goma, then I have too,” he said.

Nkunda’s forces declared a unilateral ceasefire on Wednesday after being kept at a distance of around 20 kilometres from Goma by MONUC helicopter gunships.

But one of the rebel leader’s aides said on Wednesday that Nkunda loyalists could seize the town within two or three days if they wanted, as desertions among regular forces mounted.

Nkunda insisted that capturing Goma was not his strategic objective.

“If I wanted to go to Goma I would have done it yesterday. Our fight is not about towns and villages and certain mountains. It is about protecting the people,” he said. Nkunda also told guaranteed that those displaced by the conflict would not be harmed by CNDP fighters.

“We cannot threaten internally displaced people,” he said. “We are asking people to return to their homes. We are securing them in our area.” He then claimed he wanted to work with the international community to bring support to those displaced.

“I am writing a letter to MONUC asking them to bring humanitarian support. We want to help the international community help our community.”

‘UN BLOCKING REFUGEES’: UN forces are preventing tens of thousands of people displaced by fighting in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo from entering the strategic city of Goma, a French aid group said Thursday.