November 13, 2001
Congo's President Joseph Kabila says he expects an end next year to the war that has devastated his country and engulfed much of central Africa for the past three years. Even though rebels have stepped up fighting in eastern Congo, and still control half the country, Kabila said yesterday the situation had improved and a peace process was under way, "a peace process that we intend to see to the end". "I personally expect the year 2002 to be a year of peace in Congo," Kabila said.
War in Congo has been a major preoccupation of the 15-member United Nations (UN) Security Council because it has destabilised central Africa.
On Saturday, Kabila discussed the conflict with US President George Bush. "He (Bush) promised that Congo would have its territorial integrity restored, we would have peace restored to us, because of the government's action regarding the national dialogue," Kabila said.
Congo's civil war broke out in August 1998 when Rwanda and Uganda backed Congolese rebels seeking to oust then-president Laurent Kabila. Troops from Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola now back Congo, and Burundi joined the war to fight Burundian rebels based in eastern Congo. A peace accord signed in Zambia in 1999 was violated repeatedly, but has been more effective since Joseph Kabila became president in January after his father Laurent Kabila was assassinated. The UN- monitored cease-fire has held for the most part this year, despite continued fighting in the east.
Last month Kabila's representatives walked out of crucial talks in Ethiopia on Congo's post-war future, a key part of the Lusaka peace accord. Kabila said he was committed to inter-Congolese dialogue, but it had to include all political parties and rebel groups and all sectors of civil society, and there had to be enough money to fund the talks. Only 80 of an expected 330 delegates attended the talks in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, because of a lack of funds.
Kabila met UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Sunday to discuss the way forward. SA has offered to host the next round of political talks, but Kabila said Ketumile Masire, former president of Botswana who has been shepherding the negotiations, had to solve the problems of participation and financing before they took place. "When we're talking about inter-Congolese dialogue or national dialogue we're talking about the future of a country of 50-million people, and you don't play games with that," he said.
The president welcomed a Security Council resolution adopted on Friday that gave the go-ahead for a new phase in the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo. It calls for the withdrawal of all foreign forces and the disarmament, demobilisation and repatriation of armed groups.
Kabila said Namibian forces had departed.
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