Report below on the signing of the peace agreement in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo. Go to the following website
(http://www.congopanorama.org/art-oxford.html) for a more
comprehensive analysis of the background to what has been happening
in the country (ie. neocolonialism of US and French multinationals,
through the balkanisation of the country via the US/UK security
services support to Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi which enabled their
invasion of areas of the country).
************************
DRC: Rivals sign all-inclusive peace deal
KINSHASA, 17 Dec 2002 (IRIN - UN Integrated Regional Information
Networks)
Ref: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?
ReportID=31415&SelectRegion=Great_Lakes&SelectCountry=DRC
Warring parties in the Democratic Republic of the Congo signed an all-
inclusive power-sharing deal on Tuesday to establish a government of
national unity and hopefully end four years of war, news
organisations reported.
Under the agreement, reached after months of stop-start negotiations
known as the inter-Congolese dialogue (ICD), President Joseph Kabila
will remain in office for the next two years until the country's
first elections since independence from Belgium in 1960 are held. He
will be assisted by four vice-presidents, respectively representing
the government, the Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie-Goma,
the Mouvement de liberation du Congo (MLC) and the unarmed political
opposition.
There will be 36 ministers and 25 deputy ministers, a 500-member
National Assembly and a 120-member Senate.
The accord provides for a Higher Defence Council (Conseil superieur
de la defense) to be chaired by the president of the republic. An
integrated national police force will provide security.
AFP reported that the accord permits ministers from the various
groups to have their own bodyguards, but "abandons a proposal that
2,000 South African troops assure their security". The MLC was
awarded the presidency of the National Assembly, having maintained
that it needed the position to ensure a fair balance of power, AFP
added.
Representatives of the government, rebel movements, militias,
opposition parties and civil society all signed the accord - their
first all-inclusive deal. South African President Thabo Mbeki nursed
them through the negotiations, which began on Sunday, the Mail &
Guardian online reported. The ICD first began on 15 October 2001 in
the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. [For more on accord see Mail &
Guardian Report below]
With the accord signed, Mustapha Niasse, the UN secretary-general's
special envoy in the DRC, said the "next step" would be for Ketumile
Masire, the facilitator of the ICD, to take charge of the next stage
of the ICD.
The commissioner-general of the DRC government in charge of the peace
process in the Great Lakes region, Vital Kamerhe, said the accord
marked the "reunification of the country".
To this, the government spokesman, Kikaya Bin Karubi, added: "We, the
government, are happy with the accord, because we are one of the
signatories. We have, for our part, decided to apply it. It will
require others to come here, to the capital [Kinshasa]. We know there
are certain points which have remained in abeyance, but we are
content that the essential has been done."
[ENDS]
*******************************************
Mbeki: the midwife of the DRC peace deal
Hugh Nevill | Johannesburg
The Mail Guardian
17 December 2002
Ref: http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=9483
South African President Thabo Mbeki acted as midwife to the DRC peace
deal signed on Tuesday despite initial resistance from the Kinshasa
government, which regarded him as too close to the rebels.
After numerous summits following the outbreak of civil war in 1988,
which at its height involved troops from seven other African nations,
belligerents signed a peace pact in Lusaka in July 1999 in which
Mbeki had a major input, but it failed to halt the fighting.
An "inter-Congolese dialogue" began in Addis Ababa on October 15,
2001, but broke up shortly afterwards, with participants unable to
reach any basis of agreement. In February 2002 the dialogue resumed
at the South African resort of Sun City, grouping representatives of
the Kinshasa government, the two main rebel groups, opposition
politicians and civil society.
It got off to a rocky start, with Jean-Pierre Bemba, the head of the
Ugandan-backed Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC) boycotting the
opening session. The facilitator there was former Botswanan president
Sir Ketumile Masire, who came under criticism from some participants
because he does not speak French.
He dropped out as mediator after the Sun City talks ended in April,
with the Pretoria talks, which started in October, mediated by UN
special envoy Moustapha Niasse of Senegal and South African
Provincial Affairs Minister Sydney Mufamadi.
In Sun City, the talks reached stalemate, on April 8 Mbeki arrived
and held private talks with each delegation. The MLC abandoned a
demand that Kabila step down, and Mbeki put forward an eight-point
peace plan, with a "Council of State", including rebel
representation, to oversee the government. When that was rejected, he
quickly produced another plan, under which the two main rebel
movements would each be awarded a vice presidency.
The Sun City talks ended abruptly with a sidelines agreement between
the government and the MLC -- excluding the RCD -- under which MLC
leader Jean-Pierre Bemba would become prime minister under Kabila.
That agreement disintegrated, however, and low-level fighting
continued as other African nations involved in the war announced
plans to withdraw their troops.
South Africa meanwhile sent 200 troops to join the UN observer force
in DRC, and has now offered to send 2 000 soldiers to Kinshasa to
protect rebel leaders, according to sources close to the Pretoria
talks.
South African troops are performing the same function in Bujumbura
after a similar peace agreeement mediated there by former South
African president Nelson Mandela.
In July, at the inaugural summit of the African Union in Durban, on
South Africa's east coast, Mbeki brought DRC President Joseph Kabila
and Rwandan President Paul Kagame together.
What they said remained confidential, but those talks were followed
by five days of negotiation between the DRC and Rwanda in Pretoria,
and the two leaders signed an agreement in the South African capital
at the end of that month under which Kigali agreed to withdraw its 20
000 troops from DRC in return for the rounding-up and repatriation of
Rwandan Hutu rebels in DRC who had been involved in the 1994 genocide
in Rwanda.
Mbeki attended a summit on DRC in Lusaka in May, and the following
month visited Kinshasa for talks with Kabila. In November, Mbeki told
delegates to the Pretoria talks: "All of us will be acclaimed by the
Congolese people as heroes and heroines
if we do reach agreement that gives hope to the Congolese people".
"None of us wants the Congolese people to brand us as villains
because we blocked progress to peace, democracy and development," he
added.
In Pretoria, Mbeki was instrumental in crafting the formula under
which four vice presidents will be appointed, sources close to the
talks said.
"We have been at this for a very long time and it is important for
the Democratic Republic of Congo and the continent as a whole.
I'be be very happy if they do it," Mbeki declared on Monday shortly
before the signature. - Sapa-AFP
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