POLITICS-DR CONGO: Foreign Troops Pose Threat to Peace Accord

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Juakali Kambale

KINSHASA, Apr 8 2003 (IPS) - There are growing fears that the presence of Rwandan and Ugandan troops in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is posing a threat to the peace accord signed in Sun City, South Africa, last week.

The signing of the accord took place against a backdrop of fighting in Kivu Province in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

Despite their "withdrawal" from the Congo in the late 2002, Rwanda and Uganda have beefed-up their military presence in Kivu and Ituri provinces where a new confrontation between the two armies appears to be underway.

Both Rwanda and Uganda claim they are in Congo to hunt down Rwandan and Ugandan dissidents hiding out there. The two armies fought a running battle in Kisangani, the largest city in eastern DRC, resulting in the death of hundreds of soldiers, last year..

”The new government must end the fighting in Kivu and Ituri provinces,” says Philippe Biyoya of the University of Kinshasa. ”Neither Rwanda nor Uganda ever really wanted to leave Congo and both use false pretexts to justify their presence on our territory.”

Under the accord, DRC leader Joseph Kabila will head the transitional government. And, the transitional period is set to end with elections in two years. But many Congolese remain sceptical about the accord.

”The new government must demonstrate its capability in dealing with the chaos in Kivu and Ituri provinces. Thanks, it’s no longer up to one party to fix it. The international community is involved," says Biyoya, referring to the involvement of the United Nations, South Africa and Botswana in the Congolese peace process. Ethnic clashes between the Hema and Lendu in the troubled province of Ituri remain a potential stumbling block to peace. Last week some 1,000 villagers were massacred in the province. The reported massacre, near Bunia on Apr 3, came just a day after the peace agreement was signed in Sun City, marking the end of 19 months of talks between the government, opposition parties, civil groups, militia and rebels.

Congolese belligerents signed the agreement before half a dozen heads of state, thus finalising the ‘end’ of the war in Congo, and, in theory, the complete reunification of the vast central African country. Before the signing of the accord, the rebels had occupied the eastern half of the country.

As the accord was being signed, emotions ran high in Kinshasa, the country’s capital, where the event was broadcast live on state television and radio. With their eyes glued to the screen, many Congolese thought they were dreaming as they listened to the former rebels’ promise that they were swapping their military uniforms with business suits.

”I couldn’t believe my eyes and ears when I saw and heard Olivier Kamitatu, the secretary-general of the Movement for Liberation of Congo (the MLC of Jean-Pierre Bemba fighting on the border with Central African Republic) declare that he was no longer a rebel but a member of the political leadership for establishing a new political order in Congo,” says Amedee Kirarahumu, a former minister under the short-lived government of Etienne Tshisekedi in 1992.

In a statement after signing the final document, a very courteous Kamitatu, in stark contrast to his habitual attacks on President Kabila, declared ”full confidence” in the new Congolese constitution, hammered in Sun City.

”This new constitution,” he said, ”establishes a new era for us during the transitional period leading to new elections. We finally have a vehicle through which we can express our views. We are, therefore, no longer an armed group, but part of an organised political opposition. That is what’s most important for us”.

But the absence of President Kabila from the signing ceremonies in Sun City has raised some eyebrows in Congo. Tshidibi Ngondavi, editor-in-chief of ”Le Potentiel”, a daily newspaper in Kinshasa, believes Kabila should not have missed that historic occasion.

”President Kabila committed a serious political gaffe with his absence, and it will have serious consequences. Kabila has always proclaimed, loud and clear, that he would go anywhere where Congolese peace talks were being held or discussed.

”What happened in South Africa was the finalisation of the peace process aimed at ending Congo’s political crisis. His fellow heads of state travelled to Sun City but he didn’t. I find that extremely irresponsible and it concerns me,” says Ngondavi.

In the diamond city of Mbujimayi, Western Kasai Province, supporters of Tshisekedi’s Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) barricaded roads and burned tyres along the city’s main centres to protest what they term the ”irresponsible” behaviour of the president not to go to Sun City. Police arrested 20 of the demonstrators.

Moustapha Niasse, the UN secretary-general’s envoy to the Democratic Republic of Congo, refused to comment on Kabila’s absence in Sun City, although he had met with him two weeks earlier in Mbankdaka, Equator Province. ”He told me that he was with us, but that he wouldn’t come to Sun City. I didn’t try to find out why he could not come. The important thing is that the various parties to the conflict signed the accord,” Niasse says.

On Apr 3, the Congolese delegates returned to Kinshasa, where the city’s inhabitants say they will judge each signatory by his or her deeds, not words. The latest conflict in the Congo erupted on Aug 2, 1998, after the late President Laurent-Desire Kabila (the father of current DRC leader) ordered the remaining Rwandan soldiers and military advisors, who helped him to overthrow dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997, out of the country. Before their "withdrawal" from the DRC last year, the war had sucked in at least seven African countries, with Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Chad helping Kabila, and Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi backing various rebel groups. The conflict has resulted in the death of an estimated 3.3 million people, according to a report issued by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) aid agency last week. The IRC said that only about 10 percent of the victims died violently, with the vast majority dying from starvation and disease due to the activities of the various armed groups operating in the country. "This is a humanitarian catastrophe of horrid and shocking proportions… Yet, the crisis has received scant attention from international donors and the media," said IRC President George Rupp.