Nov. 5 (Bloomberg) -- The United Nations refugee agency, or UNHCR, called for talks between Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo as the return of Congolese refugees from Rwanda threatens to undermine peace efforts in the east of the country.

Almost 12,000 unregistered refugees have returned to Congo from Rwanda since May, Francesca Fontanini, a spokeswoman for UNHCR, confirmed by phone yesterday in Kinshasa.

“There are ethnic issues and land issues and it’s important to know who the refugees are to prepare the communities they’re returning to,” Fontanini said.

The returnees are probably Congolese Tutsis, some of whom have been living in Rwanda for more than a decade to escape fighting in eastern Congo. The refugees have not returned to their villages of origin, ending up instead in camps in North Kivu, or the Virunga National Park.

These areas were strongholds of a mainly ethnic Tutsi rebel group until January, when the insurgents began integrating into the Congolese army.

“A refugee return that doesn’t go through official channels could destabilize the fragile peace process in the province,” Jason Stearns, former head of a UN panel of experts that investigated rebel groups in eastern Congo, said yesterday by phone from New Haven, Connecticut.

“The return of Tutsi refugees is an issue of great controversy for other Congolese communities,” Stearns said. “It feeds into conspiracy theories that these Tutsis are not really Congolese, and that it’s a renewed colonization of parts of North Kivu by Rwanda.”

Preparing the Ground

In spite of the returns, the UNHCR counted 53,211 Congolese refugees still in Rwandan camps as of Nov. 4, about 1,000 more than in Dec. 2008.

The organization is asking for a new tripartite agreement between the agency and Rwanda and Congo to formalize the return process “by the end of the year at the latest,” the UNHCR’s Fontanini said.

“We need to prepare the ground, alert the local authorities, and ensure they can all live together peacefully,” she said.

Repeated requests for comment from Congo’s refugee agency, the ministry of the interior, and the North Kivu governor’s office have not been answered.

To contact the reporter on this story: Michael J. Kavanagh in Kinshasa on Mkavanagh9@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 5, 2009 05:59 EST