Johannesburg — Latest reports from the Congo peace talks in Sun City, South Africa, indicate that the stalled negotiations may restart as soon as Friday or Monday. This followed late-night meetings between the key players to end the deadlock that was threatening to scupper efforts to end the civil war.
The talks were suspended on Tuesday, less than 24 hours after they opened.
One sticking point was the issue of representation of the political opposition delegation. The two main Congolese rebel leaders, backed by Rwanda and Uganda, had accused the government of President Joseph Kabila of replacing genuine opposition delegations from Kinshasa with his own supporters, masquerading as political opponents.
On Thursday, Kabila's representatives and the rebels in Sun City reached agreement that the 'unarmed opposition should appoint its own 20 delegates to the talks, formally called the Inter-Congolese Dialogue (ICD). The facilitator, the former president of Botswana, Sir Ketumile Masire, is reported to have added the names of the 20 participants without first consulting the other groups, a requirement of the rigorous talks procedures.
"We have agreed to let the political opposition parties choose their own representatives without outside interference," Kabilas information minister, Kikaya bin Karubi told reporters. The political opposition will have 55 delegates in all, to match the same number of participants allocated to the government and each of the rebel delegations.
Another contentious issue was a claim Wednesday by the rebels that government troops had launched an offensive against rebel positions in eastern Congo. The rebels said this made a mockery of the talks - that while they were meant to be negotiating peace, the government army was making war.
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By Thursday, it appeared that government troops had been ordered to withdraw from the location where they had clashed with the rebels of the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD-Goma).
The Congo peace talks opened in the South African entertainment resort on Monday, in the presence of South Africas President Thabo Mbeki and the leaders of Malawi and Zambia, as well the vice-president of Nigeria and an impressive line-up of dignitaries from around the continent.
But the opening ceremony was boycotted by rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba, of the Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC) and other political leaders, who were unhappy with opposition representation at the talks. On Tuesday, the talks were temporarily suspended.
These negotiations have been called to try to map out a democratic transition for Congo and prepare for multi-party elections. The war in the Democratic Republic of Congo has lasted three and a half years, has dragged in six countries and split the country, leaving the government in charge of the capital, Kinshasa and other cities, while rival rebel groups - backed by Uganda and Rwanda -- control a large swathe of territory to the east and northwest of the capital.
