Gaborone — After three years of war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Inter-Congolese Dialogue (ICD), between the government, the political opposition and the armed groups, finally got underway in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on 15 October. Scheduled to last forty five days, the talks collapsed seven days later, following President Kabila's decision to withdraw his delegation for what was described as lack of 'quorum'. Of the 320 delegates originally expected to attend, fewer than seventy took part. During an interview in Gaborone, Botswana, Sir Ketumile Masire, former Botwanan president and ICD facilitator, talks about the forum's financial and political difficulties and about the prospects of peace in the DRC.
After the breakdown of the process in Addis, what are the next steps?
Weve agreed that were all going to meet in South Africa -- all the five components: the Democratic Republic of the Congo the DRC, i.e. the Kabila government -- the RCD (Rassemblement congolais pour la démocratie), the MLC (Mouvement de libération du Congo), the political parties, and the civil society.
The only difference between the four others and the government is that the government said that -- before we go to South Africa -- we must see how the Mai Mai should be represented. Actually, they mention four others (pre-conditions). But I dont mention those four others because those have been catered for. One of those is participation by the churches, but the churches are included.
How have you gone about selecting the civil society representatives?
Our teams have gone to eleven provinces. Our teams have visited nineteen cities. We go to the governor and tell the governor were here and that our securitys in his hands. We say: "Please, can you let us interact with the Congolese without any interference from your staff?"
And then we go about finding the church organizations, the womens organization, the scouts, and -- if there are any professional organizations and the lot. We bring them together and ask them to elect four representatives. So the people the Congolese government say should be represented have had opportunity to be chosen.
But the churches in Kinshasa refused to attend the civil society meetings, because they wanted to be represented as such. And weve agreed that the five main churches should attend, even though thats walking the extra mile because there are a number of church people who have been elected in the eleven villages as one of the four or two of the four and so forth.
If the Mai Mai issue has to be resolved before you go to South Africa, how do you plan to address it?
Were working on finding a solution. Im the facilitator, so it is best if I dont say too much about that at this point and in that way dont risk offending one side or the other.
Regarding the make up of the delegations, during the August preparatory meeting here in Gaborone, you expressed dissatisfaction about the level of participation by women in the dialogue.
Yes, I did. Today, I can say that women are fairly well represented in the civil society delegation. They constitute about 24 percent of the delegations that will be going to the Dialogue.
But in other organizations, I couldnt be sure theyre well represented and I suspect that they are not. Therefore, I have been talking about that representation. I have appealed to Secretary General Annan to talk to them and it would appear that in these four groups, there will be women. It may not be as large a percentage as we would like, but they will have women in their delegations as a result of our hammering on them.
You werent able to bring as many people to Addis as intended. What happened?
We asked the hotels in Addis what would be required for us to book about 300 or 400 beds, and they told us that we had to pay a deposit, up front, of one million dollars.
We looked into our coffers and found we had only two hundred and fifty to two hundred and sixty thousand dollars -- a quarter of the deposit. And that would scrape the bottom of the barrel, as it were. So I had to quickly run to the Congo, talk to government, talk to civil society, talk to political parties, talk to Goma (where the RCD is based), talk to Gbadolite (headquarters of the MLC). I told all of them that we had to cut our suit according to the amount of clothes we have. We told them we would have to cut down the numbers in each delegation from 62 to 15. And let us be there for as long as the resources we have can last us.
But on my return around the 8th of October, I found that money from the European Union was said to be on the way: $800,000. So I quickly sent a message back to Congo saying when the fifteen come to Addis, they should bring the names of the balance of the team, so that if more funds come in, well have processed their names. Well have got visas for them. All well need to do is blow the whistle and they would come.
But then, we go to Addis. And the government used the argument that while in Gaborone it was agreed that there would be 320 people. And because there arent 320 people, the plan is not properly constituted and they would not agree to go into a meeting like that.
We dont want to exclude any other Congolese. But, in truth, when you have 62 people in a delegation and five delegations present, how many of these people are going to talk? There will probably be two or three spokespersons. Others are merely providing the audience.
We know were dealing with people who have been betrayed many times and who have lost confidence in having one or two people representing them because they always suspect those people are going to look after their interests rather than after the interests of the whole.
Under the Lusaka Agreement, all troops are to be withdrawn. But that hasnt happened. Why not?
As Im sure you are aware, its not something which can be done overnight. The important thing is that they all agreed. Normally, governments would not agree to all troops being withdrawn. They would say that the troops that they perceive to be raiders, because theyre invited by their enemies, should go. But the troops that they themselves have invited should remain.
But one important thing about the Gaborone declaration, if one may call it that, is that, for a change, both the armed opposition and the government agree that all troops should be withdrawn. And they agreed to have an implementation committee, composed of two people from each one of the five groups. They met in Lusaka to look at how much they were succeeding in implementing that. But I suppose they cannot just push out those fellows. They have to negotiate with the home governments of the troops who alone can issue instructions for their withdrawal.
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How about the release of political prisoners, which has also been agreed?
The government claimed that they have released some, but I dont know whether the Goma setup and the Ngadolite set up have done that . But if they have done absolutely nothing, while the government had done something, I suspect there would be squealing.
You mentioned the lack of trust. What can be done to overcome this? How optimistic are you about being able to address that issue?
I think what happened in Gaborone did show that not all hope is lost, because at least they related in a very genuine way. They were all exuding confidence. The culture that has taken forty years to evolve cannot be just be shed overnight. Working together in this dialogue, later in their parliaments and in their communities, and with friendships being built across the party lines -- that will help to engender the confidence that is necessary for the process to succeed.
For the record, what is the genesis of your mission?
The ICS (Inter-Congolese Dialogue) was hatched by the Congolese themselves. They got tired of fighting and said: 'Lets come together. Lets talk and settle our differences. They asked me to serve as facilitator. The process is blessed by the United Nations and we go to New York regularly to brief the Security Council.
Thank you very much Mr. President.
