The leaders of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda signed a peace pact on Tuesday in Pretoria, asking the world to help them end four years of warfare in the DRC estimated to have claimed 2,5-million lives.
South African President Thabo Mbeki pledged that his country would send troops to the DRC to help implement the accord.
A UN representative said the United Nations was ready to provide support for the implementation of the agreement. It was also hailed by Belgium, DR Congo’s former colonial power, and France.
In a statement in New York, the UN representative said UN Secretary General Kofi Annan “welcomes the renewed commitment of the governments of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda to a mutually agreed settlement process, aimed at making concrete progress toward peace in the region.”
In Brussels, Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel said the two central African nations should “start to implement their undertaking from now”.
A foreign ministry representative in Paris praised South Africa’s mediation efforts at bringing the two sides together.
“We ask both parties to implement this accord as fast as possible in a constructive spirit,” the French representative said. “We will follow its implementation closely.”
“No more blood must run,” declared DRC President Joseph Kabila. “It is the duty of the United Nations and particularly the UN Security Council to become involved … It is up to the international community to support us in every way.”
Said President Paul Kagame of Rwanda: “I call on my African brothers and sisters to stand together with the people of Rwanda and the DRC so that the understanding reached here can be realised.”
In Washington, a State Department representative also praised Pretoria’s mediation: “We believe that this agreement is an important step forward in resolving the long-standing conflict in the Congo.”
The agreement provides for an immediate ceasefire in a conflict which at its height drew in seven other nations — Angola, Chad, Namibia and Zimbabwe on the government side, and Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda supporting DRC rebels.
Kabila and Kagame signed the pact in the presence of Mbeki and his deputy, Jacob Zuma, who chaired five days of talks between DRC and Rwandan officials which produced the agreement on July 22.
It provides for Rwandan Hutu rebels based in the east of the DRC to be rounded up, disarmed and repatriated within 90 days — by October 27, while Rwanda will withdraw some 20 000 troops from DRC soil within the same time limit.
The Rwandan rebels are former members of the Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR) and militias who carried out the 1994 genocide in which Hutus slaughtered around a million Tutsis and then fled to the then Zaire as the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front won the civil war.
Kigali sees them as poised to reinvade Rwanda and gave military support to DRC rebels who launched an uprising against then president Laurent Kabila — Joseph’s father — in August 1998, largely to protect Rwanda’s border with the DRC.
South Africa and the United Nations will verify that the terms of the South-African brokered accord have been complied with within 120 days — by November 26.
Analysts have slammed those time-frames as far too short, but Kabila said: “We have agreed that at the end of each 30 days we will meet to assess developments and evaluate the process to see if more time is needed, whether we are on track. I don’t foresee any problems in the implementation.”
Mbeki declared: “We will do everything to implement what has been agreed … it is a bright day for the African continent.”
Kabila described the agreement as “a demonstration of African solidarity”.
Kagame said: “The issue of the Interahamwe and ex-FAR can be easily dealt with at a political level by the parties concerned.” – AFP