Washington, D.C. — While acknowledging that there are still "wars going on all over the place" in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the Director for the Africa 1 Division in the United Nations' Department of Political Affairs, Haile Menkerios, told an audience at Washington's Woodrow Wilson Center, Friday, that with close to 10,000 UN troops now in place, a transitional government in Kinshasa and international actors learning "to speak the same language to each other," there are hopeful signs that the peace process may be taking root.
It is important to remember, said Menkerios, reviewing the long complex history of conflict, competing regional interests and settlement attempts, that the DRC now has a new transitional government made up of "people who were antagonists until yesterday."
In this "very early phase" said the UN official, "new centralized administrative set-ups have not been put in place to replace those in the areas in which armed groups have been controlling."
According to Menkerios, former rebel fighters are seeking to turn in their weapons and demobilize faster than either the weak central government or the United Nations can respond to them.
Building "from the bottom up" is an important key to the future, he said. So far there is no DRC government with the "internal cohesion" to facilitate this, and it may be "better done" by NGO's now in a stronger position. These groups may "bring reconciliation to fruition via small projects that are going to absorb those who picked up the gun."
Menkerios' strongest optimism seemed to center on the transition government in Kinshasa. He says the transitional government, which has four vice-presidents, three from rebel groups, is working. "This is a transitional arrangement. Therefore, by necessity since many parties are coming together to share power it is a shared responsibility which the president heads."
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The DRC's transitional government began taking shape July 17 with the swearing in of the country's four vice-presidents - political opposition leader Arthur Zahidi N'Goma, Jean-Pierre Bemba of the MLC rebel movement, Azarias Ruberwa of the rebel movement RCD-Goma and former DRC foreign minister Abdoulaye Yerodia Ndombasi. Some 35 government ministers are drawn from various rebel groups, Civil Society and officials from the former government.
"[They] work with president Kabila in the major aspects of the transitional decision-making. They do participate. They do form sort of a collegial group that works together in taking those decisions. The president does share in policy-making with these four people. And in execution, it is the entire cabinet."
But it is so far, just a Kinshasa government, acknowledged Menkerios. Asked whether President Kabila and government officials traveled outside of the capital city, he said they did not: "It's not because they cannot travel everywhere... it would hardly mean anything when government institutions don't exist for the central government to be able to actively operate there," he said.
