June 22, 2000
The U.N. Security Council deplored the Congolese government's failure to cooperate in ending the country's 18-month civil war Thursday and called on President Laurent Kabila to reopen the office of the mediator charged with bringing the warring factions together.
Armed police in the Congolese capital Kinshasa sealed the office Wednesday of former Botswana president Ketumile Masire, who was chosen in December by the warring parties to chair national talks aimed at establishing a broad-based government in the Central African nation.
"It is very serious," said Bangladesh's U.N. Ambassador Anwarul Chowdhury, a council member. "He initiates the inter-Congolese dialogue. Unless that takes place, no peacekeeping effort will succeed."
Under the peace agreement signed last summer in Lusaka, Zambia, by Kabila and his rebel foes, a neutral facilitator was to organize talks among the warring factions which would set a timetable for elections, determine what kind of government Congo would have, and who would be its president.
But Kabila's government has accused Masire of bias and repeatedly blocked his work. Earlier this month, the government refused to attend preliminary talks organized by Masire and prevented opposition politicians from attending. Congolese government spokesman Didier Mumengi said Wednesday that Kabila had lost confidence in Masire and wanted a new mediator.
But the Security Council and the United States want Masire back on the job. And Salim Ahmed Salim, secretary general of the Organization of African Unity, appealed to Kabila to reconsider his decision and discuss his differences with Masire, U.N. officials said.
Closing Masire's office and banning him from Congo "undermine the prospects for regional peace and development," State Department spokesman Philip T. Reeker said Thursday, "and the United States is reiterating our firm support for Masire, the national dialogue and the Lusaka process."
Masire is widely respected for fostering economic development and a stable democracy while serving four elected terms as Botswana's president from 1980-98.
The Security Council statement asks its current president, France's U.N. Ambassador Jean-David Levitte, to examine the situation with Salim, the current OAU chairman, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, and Congolese authorities.
Chowdhury said the possibility of replacing Masire was not discussed at the council meeting, "but on the sidelines people are talking." He also noted it took months to reach agreement on Masire, and replacing him would delay the peace process because a new facilitator would require approval of all the Lusaka signatories _ Kabila and his allies, Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia as well as the rebels and their backers Rwanda and Uganda. In addition, Chowdhury said, if Masire is rejected today, "tomorrow any other person can be rejected by any other party. So there is no end to the replacement process."
Malaysia's U.N. Ambassador Hasmy Agam said "it will be profoundly serious" if Congo is opposed to the inter-Congolese dialogue, but perhaps less serious if the objection is only to Masire "although we feel ... he's done a good job."
Under the Lusaka agreement, 5,537 U.N. observers are to be stationed in Congo to supervise a cease-fire and the withdrawal of foreign forces. So far, only 100 U.N. personnel have been deployed because the cease-fire has been continually broken. Last week, the Security Council demanded the immediate withdrawal of Rwandan and Ugandan forces from the Congo River port of Kisangani, followed by the withdrawal of all foreign forces from the country.
The Security Council said Thursday it was informed that more than 600 civilians had been killed and more than 3,000 injured when Rwandan and Ugandan troops turned their guns on each other earlier this month in Kisangani. On Monday, the International Red Cross reported 518 deaths, including 319 civilians.
Council members said they were "deeply concerned" that all forces have not been withdrawn yet from Kisangani, and called for a cessation of hostilities throughout the country.
Uganda announced Thursday it was withdrawing five battalions from Congo.
