Central Africa: Congo, Rwanda to Sign Landmark Security Pact, but Peace Not Guaranteed

30 July 2002
allAfrica.com
By Ofeibea Quist-Arcton

Johannesburg — The presidents of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda are expected to sign an agreement, in South Africa, Tuesday, that may be the first step towards helping end the messy four-year war in the Great Lakes region of central Africa.

Joseph Kabila and Paul Kagame will put their signatures to a security pact, to be guaranteed by the United Nations’ secretary-general, Kofi Annan, and South African president, Thabo Mbeki.

Mbeki’s deputy, Jacob Zuma, chaired meetings between the Congolese and Rwandan ministerial negotiating teams in the capital, Pretoria, leading to an agreement in principle, last week.

The deal takes into account the outstanding security issues expressed by both sides. Rwanda has pledged to withdraw its estimated 20,000-40,000 troops from Congolese territory in return for a guarantee from the Kinshasa government that it will round up, arrest and disarm ex-Rwandan army and Hutu Interahamwe militias based across the border in Congo. Kigali holds these forces responsible for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and has accused Kinshasa of harbouring the Interahamwe and drafting them into the Congolese army.

Kigali has consistently maintained that it cannot pull its army out of Congo until its eastern borders with the DRC have been secured.

These intractable hurdles in the Congo crisis have hampered any progress for the past three years, since the signing of the Lusaka peace accord in 1999 between Rwanda, Congo and other parties, which was intended to end what has become Africa’s biggest and most complicated war.

The conflict has sucked in half a dozen countries ­ the Zimbabwean, Namibian and Angolan armies who rushed to the rescue of the late President Laurent Kabila, and later his son, Joseph, the current un-elected Congolese president, as well as Rwanda and Uganda, which initially backed Laurent Kabila but later backed rival rebellions within Congo.

But the bilateral accord to be signed in Pretoria by Presidents Kagame and Kabila, excludes the many other factions involved in the war. These include the foreign armies, as well as splintered, homegrown foreign-backed rebels and a divided unarmed opposition within the DRC, all pursuing their own rival agendas and objectives.

Rwanda’s own internal problems are another unresolved issue.

Observers warn that, unless these political disputes are addressed, any military deal between the DRC and Rwanda may fail to yield concrete results that could lead to an easing of the tensions and bloodshed in the Great Lakes conflict. Although the Pretoria signing may be a significant first step, it cannot end the war nor ensure stability in either Congo or Rwanda.

However, the South Africans, who chaired this latest initiative ­ after hosting the all-Congolese peace talks in Sun City earlier this year ­ are talking up the agreement, confident that the Rwanda/Congo pact is a significant development.

"We hope that, for the first time, there is a political will to implement the peace agreement which will address the security concerns of Rwanda, while ensuring sovereignty of the Democratic Republic of Congo," said a statement issued by the presidency in Pretoria.

The Inter-Congolese Dialogue in Sun City, which ran from the end of February until mid-April, ended inconclusively, having failed to achieve its stated goal of an agreement on Congo’s future, signed by all concerned DRC parties who attended the talks in the South African gambling resort.

The Sun City dialogue ended only in a partial deal between the Kinshasa government and the influential, Ugandan-backed rebel Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC), led by Jean-Pierre Bemba. It excluded the Rwandan-supported and biggest rebel group, the Congolese Rally for Democracy in Congo (RCD). Both the MLC and the RCD control huge swathes of Congo, while the government holds the capital Kinshasa and other areas.

The agreement to be signed in Pretoria apparently makes no mention of the Inter-Congolese Dialogue. The RCD rebels have warned that Kinshasa has neither the clout nor the commitment to implement any agreement it makes with Rwanda. RCD leaders insist that the Pretoria agreement must immediately be followed by direct negotiations with its own rebel movement.

"The Congo/Rwanda deal is a positive step. But you cannot achieve peace without talking to us. It is a fact that we control large areas of the country," Adolphe Onusumba, the RCD leader, told reporters in Pretoria.

But analysts point out that the Congolese rebels do not have a sufficient political base, nor ­ without Kigali - sufficient military strength, to be able to dictate terms. So the RCD will continue to rely on Rwanda, and may come under pressure to comply with the Pretoria deal without getting the direct negotiations with Kinshasa that it seeks.

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