DENIS BARNETT, Johannesburg | Tuesday 5.00pm.
WASHINGTON’s UN ambassador Richard Holbrooke will visit South Africa early next month as part of a multi-state African tour focusing on security and peacekeeping, diplomats said on Tuesday.
Details of the trip are still being finalised but it will include visits to countries involved in the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo including the DRC itself and its allies Namibia and Zimbabwe.
Uganda, Rwanda and Angola, countries supporting rebel movements seeking to overthrow DRC President Laurent Kabila, are also on Holbrooke’s two-week itinerary, which is expected to begin in Mali on December 1 and end in Tunis.
Holbrooke arrives here on December 4 from neighbouring Namibia for a three-day working visit which, apart from security, will focus on South Africa’s role in Africa, the DRC conflict and HIV/Aids, the sources said.
A US official said last week that Holbrooke was likely to discuss the deployment of UN peacekeepers with the DRC combatants. The deployment is one of the conditions of a peace accord signed in Zambia in July.
South Africa has played an important mediation role in the search for a peaceful resolution of the two-year conflict.
If the United Nations decides to guarantee peace in the country, some 15000 to 20000 soldiers will be needed, according to western diplomats.
Under the agreement, foreign forces will retreat from the DRC in nine months, a peacekeeping force will be deployed, armed groups will be decommissioned — including the Hutu Interahamwe militia — and democratic elections for the DRC will be organized.