Sun City | Tuesday
POLITICIANS and warring parties in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Tuesday began tabling their proposals for rebuilding the country as critical peace talks in South Africa knuckled down to details.
After two weeks of political drama and delays, some 350 role-players were spending their first full day debating a post-war political order and economy as well as a new national army and social system for the DRC, talks facilitators said.
”People are already making proposals to end the culture of violence and to deal with the humanitarian crisis in the country, to provide health care and education,” Atsi Aitsan, the chairman of a commission on social issues said.
”Whether they can agree or not is another issue but the mood is excellent,” he added.
The delegates, who range from rebel commanders to government ministers and religious leaders, have split into five commissions which will sit for the next month and report back weekly before the talks end in mid-April.
A commission charged with creating a new political system for the country which only knew democracy for a year after independence from Belgium in 1960, was proving the most popular but potentially also the most troubled, a delegate said.
”We have more members than most because everybody wants to have a say in this,” Diomi Ndongala of the opposition Front for the Survival of Democracy said.
”For the moment we are dealing with non-contentious issues but when we get down to discussing what democratic structures will be created and who will be part of them, things are going to get very heated,” he predicted.
Ndongala was referring to a row here between rebels and Kinshasa on whether the talks will designate a new government and president to end the rule of President Joseph Kabila.
The issue, as well as all others at the peace talks, has to be decided by consensus.
The talks, dubbed the Inter-Congolese Dialogue, are meant to see the Congolese come up with an internal plan to put a final end to the war in their country even though it drew in six foreign nations of which only two – Chad and Namibia – have so far pulled out their troops.
Though foreign belligerents like Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe have all informally sent advisors to the talks, a decision was taken Monday that they will not be allowed to sit in on meetings, which are chaired by experts from neutral states.- Sapa-AFP