Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are expected to meet their obligations under a new peace deal within 90 days after their presidents sign the accord, an official in Kigali said Tuesday, as Rwandan rebels gave a cautious welcome to the pact.
The deal, which adds little to previous pledges, was announced in Pretoria, South Africa, on Monday, but no time frame was then released for the arduous task of flushing out and regrouping Rwandan rebels who are based in the eastern DRC or for Rwanda to then pull out its 20 000 troops from the country.
Both parties to the agreement have called on the United Nations to upgrade the status of its observer mission in the DRC (Monuc) to a fully fledged peacekeeping mission to help implement the deal, said the Rwandan source, who was close to the negotiations.
DRC President Joseph Kabila has already agreed to sign the deal, a government representative said on Tuesday, although no date has been set.
By late Tuesday, the office of Rwandan President Paul Kagame had commented on the accord.
The DRC rebel group he sponsors, the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), on Tuesday praised the deal, but warned that it too, was a force not to be neglected in the future of the former Zaire.
”The RCD welcomes the conclusion of the Pretoria talks and hopes that the provisions agreed upon in this accord are effectively applied by the signatories,” RCD representative Jean-Pierre Lola Kisanga said from the rebel headquarter town of Goma, in the eastern DRC on the Rwandan border.
”The RCD would however like to reiterate the internal dimension of the Congolese conflict,” said Lola Kisanga, whose movement has long striven to play down its political and military dependence on Kigali.
”This dimension calls for a comprehensive political deal between the Congolese parties to facilitate the implementation of some of the clauses of the Rwanda-DRC accord,” the representative said.
”A (DRC) government bringing together all parties, including the RCD, which controls all of the region bordering on Rwanda, constitutes the only viable interlocutor to implement the Pretoria deal,” he said.
The RCD rejected a power-sharing agreement reached in April between Kinshasa and Jean-Pierre Bemba, the leader of a former rebel group backed by Uganda, saying it should be given a bigger role in running the country, a view shared by Kagame.
RCD Secretary General Adolphe Onusumba said in Johannesburg on Tuesday that his movement could soon meet again with officials from the Kinshasa government.
Monuc, the Joint Military Commission (JMC) of countries which signed a 1999 ceasefire accord for the DRC, as well as the Rwandan and DRC governments, will take part in the operation to deal with the Rwandan rebels in eastern DRC, the Rwandan official said.
These rebels are made up of former Rwandan army soldiers, mainly ethnic Hutus, and an anti-Tutsi militia group called the Interahamwe. Both are widely held responsible for the 1994 genocide of the Tutsi community in Rwanda.
Under the Pretoria deal, according to the Rwandan source, these groups will be pursued, disarmed, broken up and repatriated, with Kinshasa spearheading the operation.
A census of the Hutu fighters in regroupment centres will be carried out by a third party, probably South Africa, the source said.
The rebels’ presence in eastern DRC, where most are allied with the Kinshasa government, served as the main justification for Rwanda’s military involvement there and its support of the anti-Kinshasa Congolese Rally for Democracy.
Once the Rwandan rebels are dealt with to Kigali’s satisfaction, Rwanda will begin pulling out its troops from the DRC, the source said. – AFP
