President Thabo Mbeki’s plan to bring lasting peace to the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo within 90 days faces serious problems of implementation and operational capacity among peacekeeping agencies, analysts said this week.
A report by Mark Malan and Henri Boshoff of the Institute of Security Studies says the accord would be undermined by peace intermediaries and its backers’ lack of strong political and military will to implement the comprehensive — and sometimes convoluted — arrangements.
It also cites as other hindrances South Africa’s lack of “effective military expeditionary capability” and experience in complex peacekeeping operations as well as a lethargic approach by the United Nations.
Misplaced diplomatic optimism, which analysts say amounts to political naivety, could also sink Mbeki’s otherwise grand peace plan.
“The problem with inventive diplomacy is that, even with the necessary signatures on paper, diplomatic activity should not be mistaken for actual achievement,” the report says. “The Lusaka process provided a prime example of the tendency of peacemakers to gloss over detail. Although very much a ‘home-grown’ agreement, the ceasefire accord placed a heavy burden of expectancy on a UN peacekeeping force.”
Malan and Boshoff further observed: “Lack of troop commitment by [UN] members is likely to be one of the biggest impediments to the implementation of the Pretoria agreement, as it has also been to the implementation of disarmament provisions of the Lusaka Accord under the Monuc [UN Peacekeeping Mission in Congo].”
The new peace deal — brokered by Mbeki and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan — was signed on July 30 by Congo President Joseph Kabila and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame. Southern African Development Community chairperson, Malawi’s President Bakili Muluzi, was also present.
“The major caveat to South Africa’s brand of peacemaking diplomacy is that the country does not have an effective military expeditionary capability, and that covenants without swords are seldom taken seriously by protagonists,” the report by Malan and Boshoff says. –Â