South African President Thabo Mbeki began a two day visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Tuesday aimed at encouraging the transition to democracy here and rebuilding ties with a country traumatised by five years of war.
Mbeki was accompanied on his visit by Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and other high-ranking officials, including Trade and Industry Minister Alec Erwin who told the press after meeting with ministers on an economic and financial commission: ”There will be more South African investors in the DRC in the coming years”.
South Africa played a key role in negotiations to end DRC’s war that drew in six other African nations at its height and left the vast central African country’s infrastructure and economy in ruins.
The mineral-rich former Zaire emerged from the war — which claimed up to 2,5-million lives, either directly in combat or through hunger and disease — in April last year, and has since set up an interim government tasked with guiding the DRC to democratic elections by 2005.
South Africa facilitated peace negotiations both between the DRC and outside countries involved in the war, and among internal parties to the conflict.
Erwin met with former rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba, now one of four vice-presidents in DRC’s unity government in charge of the economic and financial commission, and the ministers for mining, transport, public works and infrastructure.
South Africa will ”provide the required expertise in these fields and encourage businessmen to invest in Democratic Republic of Congo,” said Erwin after the meeting.
During Mbeki’s visit, which is due to end Wednesday, the South African leader and his DRC counterpart Joseph Kabila are expected to sign a pact setting up a joint commission to oversee exchanges in the defence and security sectors, trade, agriculture, mining, transport and communications.
”The DRC holds enormous economic potential for the South African private sector generally and the mining sector in particular,” said a statement released by the South African government ahead of Mbeki’s visit.
”The state visit will thus help create a political climate conducive to both the South African and DRC private sectors to interact in a mutually beneficial manner,” it said.
DRC has enormous potential mineral wealth with deposits of gold, silver, diamonds, copper, cobalt, zinc and uranium, but much of the mining sector collapsed in the 1990s because of looting.
UN reports have since spoken of the systematic pillaging of the country’s wealth by players in the war.
According to South African government statistics, exports to the former Zaire fell from a peak of more than R1-billion (around $144-million) in 1998, the year rebels in the then Zaire rose up to topple the regime of Kabila’s father Laurent, to R112-million rand ($16-million) last year, when the war in the DRC ended.
Imports from DRC plunged even more radically during the conflict, from more than R25-million rand ($3,6-million) in 1998 to just R15 660 ($2 260) last year.
”Since the appointment of President Joseph Kabila, bilateral relations between South Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo have improved tremendously,” the South African government statement said.
Since being catapulted into the DRC presidency early in 2001when his father was assassinated, Kabila has been a vector for peace and reconciliation in the country.
He managed in the two years that followed his swearing-in to unite many of the DRC’s 50-million people behind him and engineered the signing of peace treaties with Rwanda and Uganda, which backed rebels in the war.
Days after enacting a peace accord on April 1 last year, Kabila promulgated a new constitution under which he took an oath of office.
Seconding Kabila in the government are four vice-presidents: one each from two main rebel groups, one from the political opposition and one from Kabila’s backers.
Mbeki was due to meet separately with each of the four vice-presidents on Tuesday, and with the heads of DRC’s two-chamber parliament.
The interim government in DRC, set up on June 30 last year, the day the former Belgian Congo celebrated 43 years of independence, is tasked with guiding the country to democratic elections, which would be only the second since independence in 1960. – Sapa-AFP