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Congo (Kinshasa): Peace Talks Update
Congo (Kinshasa): Peace Talks Update
Date distributed (ymd): 990624
Document reposted by APIC
+++++++++++++++++++++Document Profile+++++++++++++++++++++
Region: Central Africa
Issue Areas: +security/peace+
Summary Contents:
This posting contains two recent updates from the UN's
Integrated Regional Information Network on peace talks for the
conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. To follow the
latest developments, go to:
http://www.africanews.org/central/congo-kinshasa/
and to:
http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/archive/drc.htm
For additional news sources on Congo (Kinshasa), consult
http://www.africapolicy.org/featdocs/centnews.htm
Other recent background reports on the conflict in the
Democratic Republic of Congo include:
Human Rights Watch, Casualties of War (February 1999)
http://www.hrw.org/hrw/reports/1999/congo
Foreign Policy in Focus, War in the Congo (February 1999)
http://www.foreignpolicy-infocus.org/briefs/vol4/v4n05cong.html
International Crisis Group, Africa's Seven-Nation War
(May 1999)
http://www.crisisweb.org/projects/cafrica/reports/ca05maina.htm
International Crisis Group, How Kabila Lost His Way
(May 1999)
http://www.crisisweb.org/projects/cafrica/reports/ca06main.htm
+++++++++++++++++end profile++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO:
IRIN Background report on peace efforts
[Feedback: [email protected]
UN IRIN-CEA Tel: +254 2 622123
Fax: +254 2 622129 ]
[This item is delivered in the "irin-english" service of the
UN's IRIN humanitarian information unit, but may not
necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations. For
further information or free subscriptions, or to change your
keywords, contact e-mail:
[email protected] or fax: +254 2
622129 or Web:
http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN If you re-print,
copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit
and disclaimer.]
NAIROBI, 22 June (IRIN) - DRC peace talks this week in the
Zambian capital, Lusaka, are expected to try to merge the
various mediation initiatives aimed at finding a negotiated
solution to the conflict.
The following provides background information on the principal
peace efforts since the start of the conflict in August 1998.
The Lusaka peace process
The annual summit of the 14-member Southern African
Development Community (SADC), held in Mauritius on 13-14
September [1998], appointed Zambian President Frederick
Chiluba to lead mediation efforts, assisted by Tanzanian
President Benjamin Mkapa and Mozambican President Joaquim
Chissano.
Under the initiative, several ministerial meetings have been
held, but a heads of state summit originally scheduled for
early December to secure a ceasefire was postponed several
times. One of the problems has been disagreement over the
participation of Congolese rebels in the negotiations.
Two committees under the Lusaka peace process have drafted
"modalities" for the implementation of an eventual ceasefire
agreement and collected information on the security concerns
of the DRC and its neighbours. Meetings this week in Lusaka
are expected to culminate in a heads of state summit on
Saturday, at which Chiluba hopes a ceasefire agreement will be
signed.
Presidents Mkapa and Chissano have held their own contacts
with parties to the conflict to discuss peace prospects, but
it is unclear how closely those efforts have been coordinated
with those of Chiluba.
The Sirte agreement
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's diplomatic contacts with
countries involved in the conflict began in September and
intensified in December when he met separately with DRC
President Laurent-Desire Kabila, Ugandan President Yoweri
Museveni and rebel leader Ernest Wamba dia Wamba. Official
Libyan communiques have since referred to Gaddafi as the
"Coordinator of the Peace Process in the Great Lakes."
On 18 April, Gaddafi brokered a peace agreement between
Museveni and Kabila, also signed by the Presidents of Chad and
Eritrea, in the Libyan town of Sirte, which called for the
withdrawal of foreign forces from the DRC. Subsequently, Chad
withdrew its troops from the country and Libya sent some 40
military personnel to Uganda to prepare for the deployment of
a proposed neutral African peacekeeping force under the Sirte
accord. However, Rwanda and the other countries with forces
in the DRC were not party to the Sirte agreement.
On 15 May, Gaddafi hosted a mini-summit of African leaders in
Sirte to discuss peace efforts and the implementation of the
Sirte accord.
The Organisation of African Unity (OAU)
At the start of the conflict, OAU Secretary-General Salim
Ahmed Salim sent emissaries to Rwanda, Uganda and the DRC to
investigate the reported "invasion" of the DRC. In September,
the OAU hosted a meeting of ministers in Addis Ababa during
which a draft ceasefire agreement was formulated. That
agreement, though agreed in principle by the belligerents, was
never signed. The OAU has supported and participated in the
Lusaka negotiations, and Salim has helped organise meetings
between the parties to try to advance peace prospects.
The United Nations
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan helped broker a ceasefire deal
among belligerent countries during the France-Africa summit in
Paris in November, but that agreement did not hold. The UN
Security Council issued three presidential statements between
August and December, in which council members called for an
end to hostilities, and it adopted resolution 1234 on 9 April,
which called for the withdrawal of "uninvited troops" from the
country.
Senior UN officials have attended negotiation sessions under
the Lusaka initiative, and Annan appointed UN Special Envoy
for the DRC Peace Process Moustapha Niasse on 1 April to
determine the positions of the parties, identify obstacles to
the signing of a ceasefire agreement and make recommendations
on a possible UN role to complement existing peace
initiatives. Niasse briefed the Security Council on the
findings of his mission in a closed-door session on Monday.
South Africa
On 23 August, prior to the creation of the Chiluba-led
committee on the DRC peace process, a SADC meeting mandated
former South African President Nelson Mandela, then chairman
of SADC, to organise a DRC ceasefire in consultation with the
OAU Secretary-General. Mandela's mediation efforts were
reportedly constrained by differences of opinion with
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, who heads the SADC
security committee that authorised the military intervention
in support of Kabila.
The US magazine 'Newsweek' earlier this month reported that
new President Thabo Mbeki would announce a fresh peace
initiative - involving the deployment of South African
peacekeepers and the transformation of the belligerent foreign
army units in the DRC into a peacekeeping force - but
government officials have denied the report, saying South
Africa supported the Lusaka peace process.
[ENDS]
IRIN Special Report on the problems of policing a future peace
agreement in the DRC
JOHANNESBURG, 10 June (IRIN) - Any future peace deal in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) would require the
deployment of thousands of peacekeepers to monitor the
ceasefire and withdrawal of foreign forces - a daunting
undertaking given the size of the country and complexity of
the conflict.
It is a commitment which at the moment has had few takers,
security analysts told IRIN.
"I just become overwhelmed with the problem of trying to think
through a plan," Mark Malan of the Pretoria-based Institute of
Security Studies told IRIN on Thursday. "There are so many
actors and so many interests at stake, it might not even be
peacekeepable."
South Africa wary
South Africa, as the regional superpower, has often been cited
as the natural lead nation in any multinational or UN
peacekeeping mission for the DRC. However, South African
officials are far more reticent. "It would be a mammoth task.
We are being pressed into a corner, but it is something that
would have to be studied very, very carefully," one foreign
ministry source said.
Another senior official pointed out that "there are no
specific plans at the moment" but a deployment would be a
"political decision." The official added that South Africa has
no peacekeeping experience, and with only two battalions
trained as peacekeepers, the DRC would not be an ideal "maiden
mission".
According to Malan, South Africa's contribution would have to
be far larger than two battalions. Even if South Africa were
to provide only logistical assistance to a peace mission such
as aerial reconnaissance, a relatively large deployment would
be needed to protect those assets. With Zimbabwean forces
alone in the DRC estimated at some 9,000, the peacekeepers
"would have to be larger than any other forces on the ground."
"Clearly this is not going to happen any time soon," Malan
added. "There is no mission planning at the moment and no
forum for military staff [from both sides of the conflict] to
talk with one another." Neither has any regional or
inter-governmental organisation stepped forward to take
responsibility for a future deployment.
Mbeki plan
Given the problems that would be encountered in finding
countries willing to commit troops for a DRC mission, a plan
put forward by South Africa's Deputy President Thabo Mbeki in
December offers an imaginative approach to the issue,
government officials said.
At a meeting with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and
Rwandan Vice-President Paul Kagame, Mbeki proposed that the
belligerents themselves should be the peacekeepers and "police
themselves" once a ceasefire and troop standstill is agreed,
but under the authority of the Organisation of African Unity
(OAU).
"The UN is more likely than the OAU. But the Mbeki plan is
probably the only feasible one proposed so far," Malan said.
"It is the only feasible way of getting troops on the ground,
and with a strong lead nation inserted like South Africa, it
is the best shot we have."
However, the initiative was rejected by all sides in the
conflict. Zimbabwe, heading the alliance of pro-Kinshasa
forces, sees its intervention as a legitimate defence of the
DRC government at the invitation of President Laurent-Desire
Kabila and under the mandate of the Southern African
Development Community security organ which Mugabe chairs.
Harare considers Rwandan and Ugandan military support for the
rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD) as
"foreign aggression" and has refused to countenance a
withdrawal until those forces pull out. Uganda - and
particularly Rwanda - on the other hand, are adamant that
their security concerns must be addressed in any peace
agreement. The current peace proposals call for an effective
monitoring of their thickly-forested and porous borders to
prevent infiltration by DRC government-backed rebels.
That would drive up the scale and cost of a peacekeeping
mission and prove a difficult exercise for all but the most
sophisticated of armies to accomplish.
This material is being reposted for wider distribution by the
Africa Policy Information Center (APIC). APIC's primary
objective is to widen the policy debate in the United States
around African issues and the U.S. role in Africa, by
concentrating on providing accessible policy-relevant
information and analysis usable by a wide range of groups and
individuals.
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