The Democratic Republic of Congo’s main rebel leaders were sworn in as vice presidents in a new power-sharing government Thursday created to end the country’s nearly five-year-long civil war that has left over three-million people dead.
At a ceremony attended by thousands in DRC’s capital, Kinshasa, hopes were high that this would be a major step towards reunifying this vast central African nation, at war since 1998.
The two rebel leaders — Jean-Pierre Bemba of the Uganda-backed Congolese Liberation movement and Azarias Ruberwa of the Rwanda-allied Congolese Rally for Democracy — were two of four new vice presidents sworn in on Thursday under President Joseph Kabila.
The other two vice presidents sworn in on Thursday were Abdoulaye Yerodia Nbombasi, allied to Kabila, and Arthur Z’Ahidi Ngoma, a member of the country’s unarmed political opposition.
Together, the four new vice presidents form a major part of the new power-sharing government, agreed to in December. Headed by Kabila, the government meets for the first time on Saturday, and has until August 4 to draft a plan for leading the mineral-rich country to elections within about a year.
On Wednesday, the rebel leaders sounded optimistic about peace after meeting separately with Kabila.
”There is no more doubt, it’s irreversible,” said Ruberwa. ”We are here as partners and not as belligerents.”
Bemba echoed that sentiment.
”We have turned the page from the war,” he said. ”The five years we passed in the rebellion gave us … the pathways to get this country out of the crisis.”
But DRC still faces numerous hurdles as it tries to unite the war-divided country. The Kinshasa-based government is weak and incapable of establishing rule of law across DRC, a country the size of Western Europe.
Ethnic fighting is rife in the lawless northeast, and the country’s riches provide a powerful disincentive for armed factions there to give up fighting and yield control to a government.
Mistrust between the new government partners also remains strong.
But in Africa’s third-largest nation, people remain hopeful that the transition government will hold and mark a major step toward the end of the conflict, which has killed an estimated 3,3-million people.
DRC’s war broke out in 1998 when neighbouring Rwanda and Uganda backed Congolese rebels trying to overthrow then-President Laurent Kabila, accusing him of harbouring armed militias that threatened their own security. Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia stepped in on the government’s side.
Kabila was assassinated in January 2001 by one of his own bodyguards. He was succeeded by his son, Joseph, who pushed ahead with peace efforts, eventually leading to the withdrawal of foreign armies from the country.
War crimes that may have been committed in DRC’s war could be investigated by the world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal.
On Wednesday in The Hague, the chief prosecutor of the tribunal, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, said that he may investigate alleged war crimes from DRC’s war.
Moreno-Ocampo said up to 5 000 civilians have been killed in tribal wars in DRC’s Ituri province since July 1, 2002, when the court came into existence and its jurisdiction began. – Sapa-AP