/ 1 January 2002

The long road to peace in the DRC

A peace pact signed between the leaders of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda to end four years of warfare in the DRC is a positive step, but finding peace will be a long, arduous process, analysts say.

“This should be viewed as a step in the right direction but there is still a long road to travel,” Greg Mills, the director of the South African Institute for International Affairs, told AFP after the signing in Pretoria on Tuesday.

The ambitious agreement provides for an immediate cease-fire in a conflict which has claimed an estimated 2,5-million lives and at its height drew in seven other nations.

Mills warned that the accord faced major logistical challenges and needed both international and domestic support to succeed.

Presidents Joseph Kabila of the DRC and Paul Kagame of Rwanda signed the deal that requires Rwandan Hutu rebels based in the east of the DRC to be rounded up, disarmed and repatriated within 90 days — by October 27 — and Rwanda to withdraw some 20 000 troops from DRC soil within the same time limit.

South Africa and the United Nations will verify that the terms of the accord have been adhered to within 120 days of its signing, by November 26.

The international community is expected to support the process which began with the Lusaka ceasefire accord in July 1999 and continued during 50 days of talks among DRC protagonists in the war at Sun City, South Africa, earlier this year, said Claude Kabemba of the Electoral Institute for Southern Africa.

Kabila struck a power-sharing deal at Sun City on April 18 with his former rebel foes in Jean-Pierre Bemba’s Ugandan-backed Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC) but the Rwandan-backed Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD) rejected it.

“This is an improvement on the Lusaka accord which needed to be revamped. The Sun City dialogue was expected to take it to the final stages but this did not happen,” said Kabemba.

“These efforts to deal with the military side will help to re-open a new round of the Inter-Congolese Dialogue. Sun City was a half solution and the problem needs a full solution.”

Chris Landsberg of the Centre for International Relations, said: “I am detecting a weariness, an exhaustion on the part of both Kabila and Kagame about the toll the war has taken … but implementation is a totally different deal.”

The analysts agreed the 90-day deadline for Rwandan rebels to be demobilised and Rwandan troops to be withdrawn from the DRC was unrealistic.

But Kabila said that at the end of each 30-day period, the parties would “meet to assess developments and evaluate the process to see if more time is needed, whether we are on track”.

Richard Cornwell of the Institute for Security Studies told AFP he thought the parties involved did not have the will or capacity to observe the agreements.

“The Congolese army is not up to the job of disarming the Interahamwe, and foreign troops under (the UN observation force) Monuc do not have the mandate to do this,” he added.

A “robust force” was needed to disarm rebels said Cornwell, predicting that this would not happen this year. He estimated it would take South Africa — which has pledged to send troops to back up the accord — at least three months to prepare those troops.

Cornwell condemned the substance of the accord as “looking like smoke and mirrors”, saying its significance was mainly in “bringing together parties that had previously refused to have any dealings with each other”. – AFP