A peace agreement between the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda to be signed in Pretoria on Tuesday sets a deadline of 90 days for Rwandan Hutu rebels in eastern DRC to be rounded up, disarmed and repatriated.
Under the terms of the agreement, Rwanda will also withdraw some 20 000 of its troops from DRC soil.
A ceasefire is due to come into effect the day the agreement is signed.
Rwanda must submit a detailed withdrawal plan within 10 days of signature of the accord and start pulling its troops out after 45 days.
Repatriations are due to begin on day 30 after the accord is signed. Verification of all elements of the peace plan must be completed within 120 days of signature.
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 Rwandan civil war.
Kigali sees them as poised to reinvade Rwanda.
The agreement says the DRC army will continue tracking down and disarming Interahamwe militias and former soldiers in areas it controls.
It says that Monuc, the UN observer force in the DRC; the DRC government, the JMC (a joint military council representing all combatants in the war) and the Third Party (the United Nations and South Africa, in its dual capacity of chairing the African Union and acting as facilitator), will start to track down, disarm and dismantle Interahamwe and ex-FAR groups from day 10 of the accord.
The document does not spell out whether that operation would involve South African forces or whether Monuc would act on behalf of the Third Party.
The agreement suggests that the United Nations should consider transforming Monuc into a peacekeeping force.
”The government of Rwanda reaffirms its readiness to withdraw from the territory of the DRC as soon as effective measures that address its security concerns, in particular the dismantling of the ex-FAR and Interahamwe forces that have been agreed to,” it says.
”Withdrawal should start simultaneously with the implementation of the measures, both of which will be verified by Monuc, JMC, and the Third Party.”
The two sides agree to set up a mechanism to normalise security along the border.
”This mechanism may include the presence of an international force … ”
The DRC’s complex war began in August 1998 as an uprising in the east of the vast central African country against then president Laurent Kabila, the father of the current president, who was assassinated in January last year.
Rwanda and Uganda backed the rebels, both saying they were doing so to protect their borders against their own rebels, based in the DRC.
Burundian troops also crossed the border, mainly attacking Burundian rebels in the DRC.
Angola, Chad, Namibia and Zimbabwe sent troops to back the Kinshasa government’s army. Chad and Namibia have since withdrawn.
Kabila’s government and the Ugandan-backed Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC), agreed on a power-sharing pact in April, along with some of the DRC’s political parties, but this was not signed by the Rwandan-backed Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD).
That pact, which would see MLC leader Jean-Pierre Bemba become prime minister, a new post, is not yet in effect.
The RCD controls the eastern third of the DRC, and its exclusion from the agreement with the MLC was seen as likely to reignite fighting. – Sapa-AFP