By embarking on an unprecedented tour of the troubled east of his country next week, President Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) hopes to show that the former Zaire is reunited after five years of war.
Eight months ahead of the country’s first democratic elections in almost 40 years, Kabila ”is trying to show that the authority of the state has been restored everywhere”, commented a diplomat in the capital who asked not to be identified.
The DRC is trying to turn the page on a devastating war that between 1998 and 2003 contributed to the deaths of an estimated three million people.
In June last year, an interim government was set up, bringing in former rebel groups that had effectively cut off most of the east of the country during the war.
But since then, violence has continued in the east, with former rebel commanders rising up against their colleagues in a supposedly integrated army.
Kabila’s trip ”would send a very strong signal that control of the country is being won back”, added the diplomat.
On Thursday, the president announced he will kick off his tour in the relatively peaceful towns of Kisangani and Kindu, and travel on to Goma, a town on the Rwandan border where the largest rebel group, the Congolese Rally for Democracy, has its headquarters.
Also on the itinerary is Bukavu, an eastern town briefly captured by dissident troops in June, and Ituri, a north-eastern region where inter-ethnic violence continues to flare up sporadically after claiming about 50 000 lives since 1999.
‘It will be brave of him’
”It’s risky. It will be brave of him if he goes,” a regional analyst said in Kinshasa.
The trip ”shows that we are well on the way to reconciliation and national reunification”, he added, also asking not to be named.
Presidential trips to the east have been announced on several occasions in the past but were always cancelled for security reasons.
Kabila’s spokesperson, Kadura Kasongo, said this tour should allow the president to ”reassure people and congratulate them for resisting the aggressors”.
Details of Kabila’s itinerary, notably the starting date of the trip, have been kept under wraps.
”For security reasons, we cannot say everything,” said Kasongo. ”It’s a volatile region. We will give out information gradually.”
Kabila came to power on the assassination of his father and predecessor, Laurent, in January 2001.
Some not convinced
Many reliable sources were not convinced the president would really go to Bukavu, Goma or Ituri.
”I’d be surprised if he went,” said Patricia Tome, the spokesperson for the United Nations’s peacekeeping mission in the DRC.
”It is not certain he will do it all in one go,” commented the diplomat, suggesting Kabila might return to Kinshasa briefly after the first legs of the tour.
As well as being heavily symbolic, the tour will mark the beginning of the campaigning for polls due before June 2005, he added.
Kabila has not officially announced his candidacy in the presidential race, ”but to have a chance, he must go and meet the voters”, said the diplomat.
”Not many Congolese people have seen Kabila’s face except on official photos. It’s time to get out of Kinshasa,” added the UN spokesperson. — Sapa-AFP