The Democratic Republic of Congo’s national flag — a rich blue banner studded with gold stars — has been raised in the eastern rebel stronghold of Goma, a move a rebel official said on Wednesday was a sign the five-year civil war was ending despite fighting elsewhere and acrimony among officials in the new transitional government.
The flag-raising on Tuesday in the eastern city of Goma at the north end of Lake Kivu ”is certainly a sign the war is over”, said Adolphe Onusumba, the former leader of the Congolese Rally for Democracy, the largest of Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) two main rebel groups. He remains an official with the group.
The flag was also raised in Bukavu, another rebel stronghold at the southern end of the lake.
Optimism aside, there are ample signs of how elusive lasting peace may be in this historically troubled country.
Sporadic tribal fighting continues in the volatile north-east and in the vast hinterland south and west of Goma, and cabinet ministers representing the two main rebel groups refused on Friday to take part in a swearing-in ceremony for the new power-sharing government.
”The transition is going to be rough,” said Francois Grignon, an analyst for the International Crisis Group, a think tank. The new government will ”not make much of a difference on the ground until they agree on a specific programme of pacification for the east”.
The most recent attempt to stabilise the troubled north-east is the work of a French-led international force, not the government — nor the 5 000-strong United Nation’s force that is supposed to monitor a 1999 ceasefire.
The French force arrived in Bunia, the capital of the north-eastern Ituri district, in June to quell weeks of tribal fighting that killed hundreds and forced thousands to flee. But it has little reach outside town. Fighting last week in the village of Kisenye, near the Ugandan border, pitted the same rival Hema and Lendu tribal fighters who battled for Bunia in May and June.
And DRC troops and rebels from the Congolese Rally for Democracy-Liberation Movement, the other main rebel group, reportedly fought alongside the Hema, who unsuccessfully tried to seize Kisenye.
The UN Security Council is expected to approve an increase soon in UN troops in the DRC to more than 10 000. The bulk of those new troops are expected to be stationed in and around Bunia. The council also plans to broaden their mandate, which currently allows them to only fire in self-defence.
In Kinshasa, the capital, the new government has gotten off to an acrimonious start.
Four new vice presidents, including the heads of the two main rebel movements, were sworn in on July 17 in what was seen as a major step forward for the country’s power-sharing government, established at peace talks in South Africa last December.
But a day later, 14 rebel ministers and eight rebel vice ministers from the two main rebel groups pulled out of another swearing-in ceremony, saying they refused to pledge loyalty to President Joseph Kabila.
The rebel officials have said they will accept Kabila only as the symbolic head of the country, not as head of the government. Onusumba said on Wednesday the rebels are expected to sign a pledge of allegiance to the country, not the president, in the coming days. Regardless, the government’s first cabinet meeting had to be postponed on Saturday, and no new date has been set.
The war in the DRC broke out on August 2 1998 when neighbouring Rwanda and Uganda-backed DRC rebels tried 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.
An estimated 3,3-million people have died because of the war, most of them from war-induced famine and disease. Under the December agreement, by August 4 the government is supposed to come up with a plan how to hold elections — touted as the country’s first democratic vote since independence from Belgium in 1960 — within a year. – Sapa-AP