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Africa: A Prosperous DRC is Vital for Africa - Mbeki
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BuaNews (Tshwane)
4 April 2008
Posted to the web 4 April 2008
Michael Appel;
Pretoria
The success of the post-conflict reconstruction development process in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is vital for the continent as a whole, says President Thabo Mbeki.
The President was speaking at the final day of the 5th Session of the South Africa - Democratic Republic of Congo Bi-National Commission (SA-DRC BNC) on Thursday.
He was joined by DRC President Joseph Kabila. "The success of the DRC is important for the success of the continent," said Mr Mbeki. The DRC's location on the continent makes it crucial to bring some sense of stability to volatile neighbouring countries such as Uganda, Burundi, the Central African Republic and Sudan.
The vast jungles in the DRC's eastern Ituri region have been home to local rebel groups, Burundian and Rwandan rebels who crossed the border, as well as Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels. In 2006 the DRC held its first democratic elections in over 45 years since independence from Belgium in 1960. The election was hailed as largely peaceful by the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) and international observer missions, which witnessed President Kabila beating his rival Jean-Pierre Bemba in a runoff election.
South Africa has been heavily involved in the reconstruction and development of the DRC following six years of bitter civil war in which a number of African countries were involved including Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Burundi, Chad, Sudan and Uganda. "We discussed the reconstruction of the DRC as well as poverty and underdevelopment," said Mr Mbeki. Mr Kabila highlighted that the 5th BNC was aimed at assessing the various bilateral agreements that exist between the countries since they last met in Kinshasa at the 4th Session of the SA-DRC BNC in August 2007.
"The assessment will help us focus our efforts on result orientated programmes, and we will be focussing on a number of reforms including energy, electricity, water and basic infrastructure. "We will, however, not slowdown our efforts on issues of defence, security, public administration, tax, business and investment," said Mr Kabila. Discussing the meeting in greater detail, Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma said the BNC had focussed on four key sectors which are politics and governance, defence and security, humanitarian and social affairs, and economics, finance and infrastructure.
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In terms of defence and security, the minister said the demobilisation and reintegration of rebels into the defence force was underway and that a process of training and equipping police had also begun. Both presidents agreed that the recent unrest in the eastern part of the country only further emphasised the need to speed up the Security Sector Reform (SSR) plan which involved the disarming, training and reintegration of troops into the armed forces.
President Mbeki mentioned that talks were held as to the speeding up of the Inga 3 Hydroelectric power facility which utilises the flowing water of the vast Congo River to generate clean, renewable and sustainable electricity. The objective of Inga 3, brought about by the five participating SADC countries Westcor Project, is to generate enough electricity to supply the SADC countries.
The next BNC will be held in the second half of this year and is scheduled to take place in the DRC.
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