ugnet_: DRC

[Mulindwa Edward]

DRC peace deal 'carries seeds of conflict'     Ellen Knickmeyer  | Senegal         19 December 2002 10:16      After divvying up power, Congo's government, rebels and political opposition settled down Wednesday to the tough part of their power-sharing deal: sharing it. Amid hopes raised by a landmark accord to end the war in Africa's third-largest country loomed a powerful fear: Doubt whether any deal that set old rivals together down together in control of Congo's vast wealth was really a peace deal at all - or a guarantee for fighting over the spoils, this time at close quarters, in the shared government. "It carries the seeds of conflict," said Mpoyi Lungeni, a radio political commentator in Kinshasa, Congo's capital, where signing of the peace deal in the early hours of Tuesday nevertheless brought murmured prayers of thanks to many's lips, after four years of war. The Congo peace accord worked out early Tuesday morning in Pretoria, South Africa after months of brokering aims to end a conflict that has claimed an estimated 2.5 million lives and plundered Congo of millions in its gold, diamond, uranium and other mineral wealth. The deal commits the Congo government and the two key rebel groups to a transitional government to lead the Western Europe-size nation to democratic elections in about 2 1/2 years. Under it, Congo President Laurent Kabila would have four vice presidents - including the two powerful and powerfully ambitious leaders of the two key rebel groups. Wednesday, delegates to the negotiations in South Africa squared up to the weeks-long task of starting a government from scratch: Writing a constitution, for openers, then slowly putting it into operation. Progress was expected to be slow - agreement just on the way to pick Cabinet ministers and other key officials isn't foreseen until mid-January, for example. And, "these are the easy bits - they're sharing out the bounty, the loot," said Filip Reyntjens, a expert on central Africa at Belgium's University of Antwerp. "But the difficult thing is the substance: how will they manage this in a consensual fashion?" "They seem by and large to accept that what they got out of it is the best they can get, but that's the easy part. The difficulty is the substance - what to you do in reconstructing the state?" Reyntjens said. Former Botswana President Ketumile Masire, chief mediator for some of the earlier unsuccessful, partial deals for Congo, will be asked to take over oversight of the new talks from the South Africans in a few days, Congolese participants say. To work, the deal requires cooperation between the weak government of baby-faced young President Joseph Kabila - only two years in power, following the January 2001 assassination of father and president Laurent Kabila - and two keen and restless rebels: Ugandan-backed Jean-Pierre Bemba, and Rwandan-backed Adolphe Onusumba. The two rebels have made private, mineral-rich fiefdoms out of more than half of Congo, which they will have to give up for the envisioned united Congo. They likewise hold private armies of ragged AK-47-toting hundreds, who will be asked to give up the life of war-booty as well. By bringing the rebels' arms and ambitions into the government, "the international community has brought the war to Kinshasa," worried Elysee Muhimuzi, a human rights activist in the Congo capital. Some of thousands of armed U.N. forces in Congo are to deploy in the capital to try to make sure that doesn't happen. Eventually, Congo, which in four decades of independence has never had a solid army of its own or been able to enforce the law of the land throughout its dominion, will have to force together an armed forces out of ex-enemy rebel and government bands. Power-sharing likewise will require sharing in a way no Congo government ever has: sharing the wealth with the people, investing and developing for their good. The Congo norm is neglecting them, particularly in the wild East, and funneling fortunes to overseas' bank accounts. When it comes to splitting up the pie of gold, diamonds, and foreign aid, "hopefully there will be a strong governance mechanism by the international community so that the pie is not all eaten by the ministers and vice presidents - but is actually used for the reconstruction of the country," said Francois Grignon, Central Africa specialist for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. Power-sharing deals have a weak record in Africa, and the two African wars, Angola and Sierra Leone, that ended this year did so because their prime combatants were put out of the way, abruptly and brutally. Angola's Joseph Savimbi was killed by the army after three decades of war. Sierra Leone's Foday Sankoh was caught, jailed and set for expected war-crimes trial after waging a vicious 10-year campaign there. In Sierra Leone, an earlier power-share peace plan pushed by international mediators - much similar to Congo's - failed bloodily, with madman Sankoh and his drug-crazed fighters - despite Sankoh's new august title of co-President - taking up AK-47s and rocket-launchers again, hungry for yet more booty. - Sapa-AP        The Mulindwas communication group "With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy"