The international community and parties within Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Tuesday praised the country’s new unity government, set up to propel the former Zaire towards democracy and bring it lasting peace.
DR President Joseph Kabila named the government on Monday as DRC marked 43 years of independence from Belgium, and urged the Congolese people to put aside the ethnic differences that have divided the vast central African country.
”With the formation of the transitional administration, the war which still shrouds several parts of the nation… has lost its purpose, as all pretexts put forward to justify it are void,” Kabila said in an independence day address.
Former colonial power Belgium was among the first to welcome the creation of the new government, calling it ”a turning point” in DRC’s troubled history.
”This accord, reached after significant concessions from all sides in Congo… marks a new positive turning point to pave the way for an inclusive transition,” said Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel late on Monday.
”It encourages… all sides to work together to build the foundations of a reunification of Congolese territory, to bring peace to the country and to bring about a harmonious transition,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Jean-Pierre Bemba, head of one of two large rebel movements which rose up against the Kinshasa government in 1998, plunging the country into a long and complex conflict, called the creation of the government ”the end of the phase of war.”
Bemba has been named one of four vice presidents in the new regime, along with Azarias Ruberwa, leader of rival rebel group, Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), Abdoulaye Yerodia Ndombasi, representing the government, and Arthur Z’Ahidi Ngoma for the political opposition.
”New chapters are now beginning in the ongoing battle that we are waging. We will abandon armed conflict and the fight will become a political battle in which conviction and ideas will be our weapons,” said Bemba from his headquarters city of Gbadolite in northern DRC.
France called the naming of the interim administration ”an important moment” for DRC that ”effectively marks the start of the transition period which will end with democratic elections and should allow the return of lasting peace.”
Elections are due to be held within 24 months of the investiture of the transitional government, but that period may be extended. The elections would be only the second that DRC, ruled despotically from 1965 to 1997 by the staggeringly corrupt Mobutu Sese Seko, has held since independence.
The two main rebel groups each have seven ministers and four deputy ministers in the new government, giving them equal representation with Kinshasa and the political opposition.
Kabila, who assumed power after the assassination of his father Laurent in January 2001, heads the government, which was provided for under a peace pact signed in December to end the war in DRC, a country the size of western Europe.
European Commission chief Romano Prodi on Tuesday praised Kabila ”and other Congolese parties who had the wisdom and flexibility needed to… set up a government of national unity and allow the period of transition to begin.”
He praised said he hoped the new government would lead to ”lasting national and regional reconciliation.”
DRC’s conflict drew in half a dozen African nations at its height. It was fuelled by DRC’s mineral wealth, with all parties using the chaos to plunder the country of its natural resources.
The peace pact came into force in April this year, but unrest has continued in the northeastern Ituri and Kivu regions, where hundreds have died in recent months in various conflicts between ethnic militias and rebel groups.
”The country is emerging painfully from a war that has sorely tested national cohesion,” said Kabila on Monday.
”I call on you to commit yourselves to the nation… as political affinities and regional divisions cannot take precedence over the overall good of the country, no more than does belonging to a tribe or an ethnic group,” he said.
Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad of South Africa, which played a key role in DRC’s peace process, said Monday that DRC had become the hope of Africa with the creation of the interim government.
Speaking at a reception in Pretoria to mark DRC’s independence anniversary, Pahad said: ”You are now the hope of Africa, with your economic, human and natural resources.
”With a stable DRC, Africa’s time has come.” – Sapa-AFP