May 6, 2002
Text of report in English by Rwandan radio on 6 May; subheadings inserted editorially
Patrick Mazimpaka, the presidential advisor on the DR Congo arrived in Kigali yesterday, from Luanda Angola , where he had been attending talks with UN Security Council and the political committee of the Lusaka peace accord.
Speaking to the press on arrival at Kigali International Airport, Mr Mazimpaka said that the talks focused on three main issues: Violations to the Lusaka peace accord, the inter-Congolese dialogue and the radical new plan put forward by the UN Security Council for joint military operations with the Kinshasa government forces.
Implementation of Lusaka Cease-Fire Agreement
Mazimpaka The purpose of the meeting was to review the implementation of the Lusaka Cease-Fire Agreement, to see how far we have gone and we examined the usual problems of cease-fire violations, the disarmament of the armed groups and also the question of withdrawal of foreign forces in there, and finally the inter-Congolese dialogue - we received a report from the facilitator Sir Ketumile Masire . So we had recommendations to make to the UN Security Council words indistinct and we reached some understanding on the main issues
Sanctions
Political committee asked mainly for sanctions against parties, which persistently violate the agreement. The Security Council is willing to consider that, if we make a formal request to them. Examples of violations are the failure of the government forces, Kinshasa government forces, to vacate defensive positions they have occupied, in a irregular manner, and basically they have continued to support word indistinct armed groups in the east of the DRCongo . These are the kind of violations we want to seek sanctions for.
Disarmament - UN "not doing enough"
On the question of disarmament, we discussed the fact that the UN was not doing enough to effectively disarm the armed groups, mainly the FDD Burundi pro-Hutu rebel Forces for the Defence of Democracy , the Interahamwe Rwandan Hutu extremists and ex-FAR former Rwandan Armed Forces . But the Security Council came up with a number of ideas, that we are going to study and see what comes out of it. Its idea was that some countries that are affected by armed groups operating in Congo, mainly Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi, should work with the Congolese forces.
Today, those on the ground, the rebel forces, are tomorrow the government army, once they have finished their intervention to continue tracking down and dissuading them, of course, from continuing their activity sentence as heard . And if we agree on the modalities in terms of distances, where to operate and supervision of MONUC UN Observer Mission in the Congo and the time limit maybe, the Security Council would actually support that and endorse that kind of operation to get rid of this problem of armed groups.
Radical proposal
It is a very radical proposal, but we have to study it in detail, so that we can words indistinct . Now that words indistinct with the withdrawal of foreign forces, which means it is the other forces, that do not have security problems with Congo, would have to leave Congo immediately, that is the Angolans, Zimbabwe and Namibia, will have to go because they don't have any serious excuse for being in Congo.
Inter-Congolese dialogue
On the inter-Congolese dialogue, the political committee received a report from former Botswana President Masire, who is the facilitator of the inter-Congolese dialogue , said the Congolese parties had done a lot of work during the negotiations in the time given and had adopted some 37 resolutions words indistinct matters.
Sun City Agreement: a fraudulent agreement
The only thing that was remaining was the power-sharing formula. And what was termed as the Sun City Agreement was a fraudulent agreement that was not negotiated by all the parties. So it simply represents a step aside from the main process.
So it was the view of the political committee, its recommendation, that the Congolese parties should get back to Sun City and to the framework and complete these negotiations. The Security Council was also unanimous about that opinion that they should go back and continue and complete the negotiations for the transitional institutions and the power-sharing arrangement. So I think those are mainly the achievements of the words indistinct meeting, which I hope that the Security Council members will be able to reiterate, when they come to Kigali tomorrow.
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