Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot on Tuesday pledged €5-million to South Africa’s efforts to bring peace to the Democratic Republic of Congo and lauded Pretoria’s peacemaker role in Africa.
”If we can stay the course, our joint efforts can help create the conditions for free and fair elections in the DRC in the near future,” Bot told guests at his country’s new embassy building.
”That would be a truly important achievement,” he said.
Earlier on Tuesday, Bot signed an agreement with South African Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota committing Holland to contributing €5-million to back Pretoria’s efforts to demobilise and reintegrate former rebels in eastern DRC.
South Africa has played a leading role in helping bring peace to the DRC, where polls are scheduled by June 2006 to cap a two-year political transition. They will be the first pluralistic and open polls in the former Zaire in 40 years.
Bot also signed pacts on avoiding double taxation with South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel and on setting up a bi-national commission which will meet twice a year to discuss matters of mutual interest.
Bot said the Hague and Pretoria were also mulling a ”strategic partnership for peace and security in Africa.”
”The aim is to build an enduring framework for cooperation that builds on the countries’ relative strengths,” he said.
Bot hailed South Africa’s role as a continental peacebroker.
”We see South Africa as an exporter of stability, both through the example it sets for other countries and through its active foreign policy,” he said. ”We admire the mediation efforts President Thabo Mbeki and South African ministers have undertaken in Sudan, Burundi, the DRC and Ivory Coast,” he added. – Sapa