President Thabo Mbeki did not want his first state visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to look like a victory lap for what is arguably his government’s greatest foreign mediation success. Neither did he want it to be frittered away with the customary pomp and ceremony of these events.
He went mob-handed to Kinshasa this week, taking no fewer than seven Cabinet colleagues. Arriving with big visiting parties has become a feature of bilateral relations with this central African giant.
President Joseph Kabila made his first presidential visit to South Africa two years ago with enough ministers to hold a fully fledged Cabinet meeting.
There was a lot of talk then about getting in on the ground floor of this mineral rich country that has the capacity to redevelop itself.
That talk proved empty, largely because the DRC was not over its problems that, at their height, drew in six foreign armies and threatened to become Africa’s world war.
The success of Mbeki’s visit will be measured by whether South African business has been able to put flesh on the bones of its dealings with the DRC now that the country seems securely on the road to its first democratic election in 40 years.
There was talk in the South African delegation of R60-billion being injected into the DRC. But this is not something over which Mbeki has control. He has to wait now to see if South African entrepreneurs have broken with the timid and tentative attitude that has prevented them so many times from travelling down roads built painstakingly by joint agreements and through doors opened by government-to-government contacts.
Tokyo Sexwale’s Mvelaphanda Holdings has signed a memorandum of understanding giving it access to gold and copper deposits with possible interests later in hotels, airports and mines.
The DRC has abundant resources of gold, silver, diamonds, copper, zinc and uranium, but the country’s mining sector needs rebuilding after the civil war.
Mbeki took care of the political business with a locker-room speech full of spirit-building fire.
”Africa’s renaissance will not be complete until we have succeeded in the DRC,” he told a joint session of the country’s Parliament shortly before flying home.
”We have one more challenge before us: to carry out the plan of action we set for ourselves,” he said of the transitional process set in motion with the Pretoria Agreement of December 2002.
”People of goodwill in the rest of Africa and the entire world are prepared to back you. The Congolese people must take charge of their own liberation. Congo is the standard bearer of the ‘African renaissance’.
”In the coming days we are going to work together to see how we must change the living conditions of both our peoples and fight poverty,” he said.
Mbeki said the Congolese are a hardworking people, but that they don’t derive much benefit from their work. ”I saw people in the streets of Kinshasa. They expect a lot of us.”
The South African president urged lawmakers to fight ”abuses of power, theft, corruption and oppression” and create conditions that would attract outside investors.
”An elected government will help to equitably distribute DRC’s wealth. What we do henceforth will prove just how serious we are in keeping our promises,” he said.
Former United States ambassador to South Africa William Lacy Swing, who is now the special envoy to the DRC of United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, said he was confident elections could be organised within the 2005 timeframe proposed in the peace pact.
”It is possible on a technical level to organise elections in DRC,” said Swing, who also heads the UN mission in DRC known as Monuc.
Organising the elections depends largely on ”the government’s programme and the political will” and was ”less certain on a political level” because of the slow-moving transition process, he said.
”Most of the laws covering the organisation of elections still have to be approved.
”The issues of refugees and displaced persons, the presence of foreign armed groups on Congolese territory and the demobilisation of local armed groups are also obstacles to be overcome to ensure that the elections go off smoothly,” he said.
Last week an international committee monitoring progress in restoring democracy, deplored the tardiness of election preparations.
Kabila thanked the South African people for ”sharing the dream of all Congolese, national reconciliation and territorial integrity”.
He and Mbeki signed an agreement setting up a joint commission to oversee exchanges on defence and security, trade, agriculture, mining, transport and communications.
The chief of staff of the South African army, Siphiwe Nyanda, is on a three-day visit to the DRC with four South African generals visiting bases where thousands of former rebels from Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda have been housed as they await repatriation.