Global Policy Forum

Government and rebel delegates at Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) peace talks have agreed on most details of a deal aimed at ending the country's brutal four-year-old civil war, but divisions remain on power-sharing and the composition of the armed forces, the UN mediator said Wednesday. Moustapha Niasse told AFP in an interview that he did not feel bound by a November 23 deadline for an agreement set by South African President Thabo Mbeki.

"The first and most important thing is to end the war," he said. "Everything springs from that." The conflict drew in seven foreign nations at its height and has left some 2.5 million dead as a result of direct and indirect causes.

"Ee have solved 85 percent of the issues before us, but I cannot specify which these are while negotiations are still in progress," Niasse said as representatives of the government, rebels, militias, opposition politicians and civil society continued their talks in Pretoria, AFP reported.

The UN special envoy outlined the major stumbling blocks as the make-up of the armed forces during a two-year transitional period ahead of elections, security arrangements for Kinshasa during this time and the modalities of power-sharing.

"I do not feel committed at all by the deadline of November 23 mentioned at the resumption of these talks. If we get a settlement by then, fine. If not, we will continue," he added.

"We are engaged in a very complex business. There are eight groups involved. They are trying to make a deal that will last for the two-year transitional period after which they will go into a big competition to be elected as the government. "For us the date of completion is not important. I hope to finish by the end of December but I cannot make predictions about something as complex as this."

The two main rebel movements, the Ugandan-backed Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC) and the Rwandan-backed Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD) are demanding "vertical power sharing" in the military, in the provinces, the intelligence and diplomatic services, the police, and state-owned companies, a concept rejected by the government of president Joseph Kabila.

"The government wants to agree now on sharing the Executive, the National Assembly and the Senate," Niasse said. "The MLC and RCD want to agree here at least on the quotas for sharing the provincial administrations, the diplomatic facilities, the military, the police, the intelligence service and public enterprises.

"We are working through these issues one at a time. "On the security of Kinshasa, the people coming from Goma (RCD) and Gbadolite (MLC) to form the transitional government want assurances that they and their families will be protected at all times."

Diplomatic sources say the RCD and the MLC are calling for battalion-strength protection (about 700 to 1,000 men) for each of their delegations in the capital. "The facilitation team has had exhaustive talks with all the delegates," Niasse said.

"These were based on the document we presented then last Saturday containing all the points of agreement. "We are now busy with a second synthesis expanding on these points of convergence," he said, showing documents with hundreds of words notated in the margins.

"Each of these notes is a point of convergence reached during this round of negotiations," he said. "We are also working a draft Constitution." Niasse said he had postponed plans to visit Kinshasa on Tuesday because he did not want to break the momentum of the negotiations.

"The urgency is here to continue the contacts," he said. Diplomatic sources said Niasse had asked Majuncu Gumbi, a South African member of the facilitation team, to go to Kinshasa in his place.