African ministers sign Congo peace deal
02:02 p.m Jul 07, 1999 Eastern
By Buchizya Mseteka
LUSAKA, July 7 (Reuters) - African defence and foreign ministers on Wednesday adopted a long-delayed draft ceasefire document aimed at ending the crippling war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The war, which threatens regional stability and economic growth, has divided the region into countries backing President Laurent Kabila's government in Kinshasa and those supporting rebels fighting to topple him.
''We have adopted the document and what remains now is for the presidents to come and sign it,'' Zimbabwe's Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge told Reuters.
Mudenge said the mediator, Zambian President Frederick Chiluba, was now consulting his counterparts in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region, plus Rwanda and Uganda to decide when a summit should be held.
The accord calls for a ceasefire to take effect 24 hours after heads of state initial the document at the summit.
The ministers agreed on the document at a closed meeting in the Zambian capital Lusaka after 13 days of intense negotiations between Congolese rebel factions and the Kinshasa government.
A draft document obtained by Reuters called for an end to hostilities by all forces in the Congo and the prohibition of military movements, hostile actions and propaganda.
The agreement also calls on the United Nations Security Council, in collaboration with the Organisation of African Unity, to constitute and deploy a peacekeeping force on a Chapter Seven peace enforcement mission.
U.N. officials at the conference told Reuters that the world body would send a force to the Congo, but the Security Council was unlikely to authorise a Chapter Seven mission, which gives peacekeepers the authority to disarm belligerents.
The document also calls for dialogue between Congolese political groups, the creation of a new national army, the release of prisoners of war and withdrawal of foreign forces.
''We are very happy with the document and we hope it will bring a lasting peace to our country,'' Bizima Karaha, the Congolese rebel spokesman, told Reuters.
The agreement came after Rwanda and Zimbabwe agreed on mechanisms for disarming the Interahamwe Hutu militia based in the Congo, blamed for the 1994 genocide of an estimated 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
Rwanda alleges the Interahamwe have undergone guerrilla training by the Zimbabwean army and are now fighting alongside Congolese government troops and their allies against Ugandan and Rwandan-backed rebels, who now control more than 50 percent of Africa's third largest country.
Officials said Zimbabwe -- which with Angola, Chad and Namibia has sent thousands of troops to prop up Kabila -- had earlier demanded that Rwanda take back the Hutu militia and reintegrate them into Rwandan society.
The horrifying possibility of another genocide gave the Rwandans a strong incentive to hold their ground.
The Interahamwe, backed by a 40,000-strong Rwandan Hutu army, fled to the Congo in 1994 after the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) guerrilla army led by military strongman Major-General Paul Kagame ended the slaughter.
It was because of the Hutu presence in the Congo that Kagame invaded the vast central African nation in 1996 to overthrow the late dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.
Kagame installed his then ally Kabila in power in Kinshasa, only to fall out with him last August after accusing him of failing to contain the Interahamwe.
Adoption of the draft document was also delayed by the reluctance of the United Nations to deploy a Chapter Seven peace enforcement mission in the former Zaire. |
