OWN CORRESPONDENT, Lusaka | Sunday 8.00pm.
DEMOCRATIC Republic of Congo (DRC) peace negotiations are being hampered by disagreements over the wording of a ceasefire document in various languages, sources close to the meeting said on Sunday.
Disputes over translations of the document from English into French and Portuguese are delaying the finalization and signing of the truce, the sources said. Officials from both sides in the conflict, meeting at the Zambian foreign ministry, are working on the clarity of the language, having deliberated all day Saturday and into the early hours of Sunday. They reconvened late Sunday morning.
Representatives from Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia — which back DRC President Laurent Kabila — and of Uganda and Rwanda — which support the rebels — are understood to have discussed an agreement reached Friday by Kinshasa government officials and rebel leaders on a mechanism for ending the 11-month-old war, including a ceasefire and a “national dialogue.”
One source said that Zambian authorities have been formally updating the United Nations and the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) on progress at the talks.
The DRC foreign minister was on Sunday quoted by a private Zambian radio station, Phoenix, as saying that some unidentified foreign belligerents are trying to delay the signing of the ceasefire, in an apparent reference to Rwanda.
Foreign and defence ministers from the warring parties and several other African states postponed a meeting slated for Saturday at which they were expected to possibly set a date for heads of state to sign a ceasefire.
Hopes for an early end to the war rose after Friday’s announcement by government and rebel negotiators that they had overcome some stumbling blocks to peace and had “decided to enter into discussions to establish a new political order and national reconciliation.”