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Report below on the
signing of the peace agreement in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo. Go to the following website (http://www.congopanorama.org/art-oxford.html) for a more comprehensive analysis of the background to what has been happening in the country (ie. neocolonialism of US and French multinationals, through the balkanisation of the country via the US/UK security services support to Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi which enabled their invasion of areas of the country). ************************ DRC: Rivals sign all-inclusive peace deal KINSHASA, 17 Dec 2002 (IRIN - UN Integrated Regional Information Networks) Ref: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp? ReportID=31415&SelectRegion=Great_Lakes&SelectCountry=DRC Warring parties in the Democratic Republic of the Congo signed an all- inclusive power-sharing deal on Tuesday to establish a government of national unity and hopefully end four years of war, news organisations reported. Under the agreement, reached after months of stop-start negotiations known as the inter-Congolese dialogue (ICD), President Joseph Kabila will remain in office for the next two years until the country's first elections since independence from Belgium in 1960 are held. He will be assisted by four vice-presidents, respectively representing the government, the Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie-Goma, the Mouvement de liberation du Congo (MLC) and the unarmed political opposition. There will be 36 ministers and 25 deputy ministers, a 500-member National Assembly and a 120-member Senate. The accord provides for a Higher Defence Council (Conseil superieur de la defense) to be chaired by the president of the republic. An integrated national police force will provide security. AFP reported that the accord permits ministers from the various groups to have their own bodyguards, but "abandons a proposal that 2,000 South African troops assure their security". The MLC was awarded the presidency of the National Assembly, having maintained that it needed the position to ensure a fair balance of power, AFP added. Representatives of the government, rebel movements, militias, opposition parties and civil society all signed the accord - their first all-inclusive deal. South African President Thabo Mbeki nursed them through the negotiations, which began on Sunday, the Mail & Guardian online reported. The ICD first began on 15 October 2001 in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. [For more on accord see Mail & Guardian Report below] With the accord signed, Mustapha Niasse, the UN secretary-general's special envoy in the DRC, said the "next step" would be for Ketumile Masire, the facilitator of the ICD, to take charge of the next stage of the ICD. The commissioner-general of the DRC government in charge of the peace process in the Great Lakes region, Vital Kamerhe, said the accord marked the "reunification of the country". To this, the government spokesman, Kikaya Bin Karubi, added: "We, the government, are happy with the accord, because we are one of the signatories. We have, for our part, decided to apply it. It will require others to come here, to the capital [Kinshasa]. We know there are certain points which have remained in abeyance, but we are content that the essential has been done." [ENDS] ******************************************* Mbeki: the midwife of the DRC peace deal Hugh Nevill | Johannesburg The Mail Guardian 17 December 2002 Ref: http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=9483 South African President Thabo Mbeki acted as midwife to the DRC peace deal signed on Tuesday despite initial resistance from the Kinshasa government, which regarded him as too close to the rebels. After numerous summits following the outbreak of civil war in 1988, which at its height involved troops from seven other African nations, belligerents signed a peace pact in Lusaka in July 1999 in which Mbeki had a major input, but it failed to halt the fighting. An "inter-Congolese dialogue" began in Addis Ababa on October 15, 2001, but broke up shortly afterwards, with participants unable to reach any basis of agreement. In February 2002 the dialogue resumed at the South African resort of Sun City, grouping representatives of the Kinshasa government, the two main rebel groups, opposition politicians and civil society. It got off to a rocky start, with Jean-Pierre Bemba, the head of the Ugandan-backed Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC) boycotting the opening session. The facilitator there was former Botswanan president Sir Ketumile Masire, who came under criticism from some participants because he does not speak French. He dropped out as mediator after the Sun City talks ended in April, with the Pretoria talks, which started in October, mediated by UN special envoy Moustapha Niasse of Senegal and South African Provincial Affairs Minister Sydney Mufamadi. In Sun City, the talks reached stalemate, on April 8 Mbeki arrived and held private talks with each delegation. The MLC abandoned a demand that Kabila step down, and Mbeki put forward an eight-point peace plan, with a "Council of State", including rebel representation, to oversee the government. When that was rejected, he quickly produced another plan, under which the two main rebel movements would each be awarded a vice presidency. The Sun City talks ended abruptly with a sidelines agreement between the government and the MLC -- excluding the RCD -- under which MLC leader Jean-Pierre Bemba would become prime minister under Kabila. That agreement disintegrated, however, and low-level fighting continued as other African nations involved in the war announced plans to withdraw their troops. South Africa meanwhile sent 200 troops to join the UN observer force in DRC, and has now offered to send 2 000 soldiers to Kinshasa to protect rebel leaders, according to sources close to the Pretoria talks. South African troops are performing the same function in Bujumbura after a similar peace agreeement mediated there by former South African president Nelson Mandela. In July, at the inaugural summit of the African Union in Durban, on South Africa's east coast, Mbeki brought DRC President Joseph Kabila and Rwandan President Paul Kagame together. What they said remained confidential, but those talks were followed by five days of negotiation between the DRC and Rwanda in Pretoria, and the two leaders signed an agreement in the South African capital at the end of that month under which Kigali agreed to withdraw its 20 000 troops from DRC in return for the rounding-up and repatriation of Rwandan Hutu rebels in DRC who had been involved in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Mbeki attended a summit on DRC in Lusaka in May, and the following month visited Kinshasa for talks with Kabila. In November, Mbeki told delegates to the Pretoria talks: "All of us will be acclaimed by the Congolese people as heroes and heroines if we do reach agreement that gives hope to the Congolese people". "None of us wants the Congolese people to brand us as villains because we blocked progress to peace, democracy and development," he added. In Pretoria, Mbeki was instrumental in crafting the formula under which four vice presidents will be appointed, sources close to the talks said. "We have been at this for a very long time and it is important for the Democratic Republic of Congo and the continent as a whole. I'be be very happy if they do it," Mbeki declared on Monday shortly before the signature. - Sapa-AFP The Mulindwas
communication group
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