Johannesburg — Less than a day after the opening ceremony of the much-vaunted Congo peace talks in Sun City, South Africa, on Monday, the proceedings were adjourned for at least twenty-four hours on Tuesday.
Officials cited problems of representation and attendance by opposition political parties from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as the reason for the postponement.
This echoed earlier complaints on the opening day by opposition politicians that they had been invited, but not accredited, for the Inter-Congolese Dialogue (ICD) as the peace talks process is known.
Significant and minor parties appear to have been left out. For example, the leader of the UDPS (Union for Democracy and Social Progress) Etienne Tshisekedi, best known for his dogged opposition to the late dictator of Zaire Mobutu Sese Seko, boycotted the opening of the Dialogue in Sun City.
Denis Kimwana Nakeya, Tshisekedi's party representative in South Africa, was captured by television cameras on Monday, in a heated altercation with local police who refused to allow him into the Superbowl conference venue, because he did not have the necessary accreditation.
Dozens of other exiled Congolese, who tried to force their way into the building, were removed by police. They said they represented Tshisekedi's party, but did not have invitations to attend the talks.
Nakeya told allAfrica.com that they were scandalised by the disorganisation and the absence in Sun City of what he called the 'real' political opposition from the DRC. He complained that 'opposition groups' at the talks were merely masquerading as political adversaries to the government of President Joseph Kabila in Kinshasa and were, in fact, Kabila's stooges.
The same argument came from one of the main rebel commanders, Jean-Pierre Bemba of the Ugandan-backed Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC), who also missed the opening of the talks on Monday evening. Bemba had earlier griped that, of the 55 parties so-called opposition parties to attend the talks, a number were 'front men', sponsored by the Kabila government.
In Sun City on Monday night, Bemba held a meeting with President Kabila and another rebel leader, Adolphe Onusumba of RCD-Goma (Congolese Rally for Democracy) who is backed by Rwanda. The discussions were chaired by President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and the current chairman of the Southern African Development Community, President Bakili Muluzi of Malawi.
Pierre Maloka, leader of the little known PUNA (National Unity Party) contacted allAfrica.com to say that, although his party was on the approved list of non-armed opposition delegations to attend the Sun City talks, his and 19 other such groups were not "allowed" to travel to the meeting.
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"Why were we, and the delegates from the 20 "non violent" parties - which were approved at the recent Brussels meeting, not included at the last minute? Some of the groups did not find out about their exclusion until they were at the airport, ready to depart!" said Maloka in an e-mailed letter.
He questioned whether the Sun City Inter-Congolese Dialogue was truly "inclusive".
Others already in the South African holiday resort are asking the same question. The facilitator of the negotiations, the former president of Botswana, Sir Ketumile Masire, has a tough job ahead. On Tuesday, he suspended the talks for at least a day to try to find a solution to the problems and sort out opposition party representation. Many are complaining that these issues should have been ironed out well in advance.
Similar difficulties dogged the failed precursor to the Sun City talks in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, last October which lasted barely a week. At that time, Masire cited a lack of adequate funds. The Kabila government delegation walked out, claiming that there was not proper representation of all Congolese in Addis.
If the Sun City negotiations continue, delegates from all the Congolese factions will have to chart a course to end the three and a half year civil war in the DRC and map out the democratic future of their country, including the knotty issue of the formation of an interim government. They also have to agree on the withdrawal of all foreign troops from their territory.
