February 22, 2001
The Security Council set a new timetable Thursday for the warring sides in Congo to pull back troops from front lines and for U.N. observers to verify their departure. In a resolution negotiated with the various fighting factions, the council demanded that the forces start an initial nine-mile (15-kilometer) pullback by March 15, and to prepare a plan for their complete withdrawal from the Democratic Republic of Congo by May 15. Around that time, the council may send a delegation to the region to discuss next steps.
The resolution was unanimously adopted at the conclusion of a two-day meeting on moving Congo's peace process forward between the council, ministers of the six warring countries and representatives of Congo's three main rebel groups involved in the conflict. "Of course it's only the beginning of a long journey, but it's a good beginning," said French Ambassador Jean-David Levitte, who has taken the lead in trying to help plot the next steps in Congo's long-winded peace process.
When asked why he thought this proposal might succeed where others had failed, Levitte said prospects for peace had improved in the past few weeks with promises by Rwanda and Uganda to pull out troops and by pledges by Congo's new leader to meet with a regional mediator. "The choice for us is either to be skeptical and say 'Come on, another joke,' or be serious and ... consider that this time they are serious,"' Levitte said.
Rebels backed by Rwanda and Uganda took up arms in August 1998 to oust Congo's late President Laurent Kabila from power. Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia joined the fray to support Kabila. All sides signed a cease-fire agreement in Lusaka, Zambia, in 1999, but all have since violated it. Hopes for peace have been raised by recent pledges by Rwanda to pull back its troops 200 kilometers (125 miles) from their front lines and by Uganda to withdraw two battalions from Congolese territory. In addition, Congo's new president, Joseph Kabila, has agreed to meet with a regional mediator to launch talks with the country's internal opposition -- a key provision of the Lusaka agreement that his slain father had refused to fulfill.
"Everybody must stay still and be ready to pull back their troops," Namibian President Sam Nujoma said Thursday in the Congolese capital, Kinshasa, after meeting with Kabila. He expressed hope that peace would hold, "so that the Congolese people can be given the opportunity to start with their democratic process."
The U.N. summit was designed to build on the recent momentum and to endorse new U.N. plans to deploy U.N. military observers quickly to oversee the pullback of troops. Secretary-General Kofi Annan reported earlier this month that only 3,000 of an authorized 5,537 troops were needed to oversee an initial, 9-mile pullback.
Zimbabwe's foreign minister, Stanislaus Mudenge, opened the meeting Wednesday by criticizing the trimmed force size, saying it implied the United Nations wasn't sincere about seizing the chance to implement the Lusaka agreement. To address his concerns, the final draft of the resolution made clear that the troop strength goal remains at 5,537 and that the council will review the operation once the parties actually start leaving the country.
The final text of the resolution removed a proposed September or November target date for foreign troops to have left Congo after the warring sides said they couldn't agree to a withdrawal deadline before they decide how they would arrive at it.
