Kigali: The planned revival of diplomatic relations between Rwanda and Congo could bring a long-term solution to proxy militias fighting in eastern DRC, the EU Humanitarian and Development Aid Commissioner Louis Michel said Thursday.
The two governments agreed last week to a plan to disband the FDLR fighters starting by the New Year with Rwanda military help. Despite previous similar deals, observer now believe the latest pact could be one to go by as it includes a component for restoration of embassies – after a 14-year lull.The EU envoy said after talks with President Paul Kagame that the Kigali-Kinshasa deal could go a long away to ending the problem of FDLR and CNDP – for dissident General Laurent Nkunda.
DRC accuses Rwanda of aiding General Nkunda and Kigali claims Kinshasa is arming the FDLR. A new classified UN report details the “direct support” that Kigali has been availing to Nkunda and links the FDLR to the doorsteps of Kinshasa.
Meanwhile, the Tripartite Plus summit on Wednesday called for tighter sanctions on the FDLR to close all the support gaps that the group has been enjoying – describing the militias as a “cancer”.
Foreign Ministers from Rwanda, DR Congo, Uganda and Burundi – along with mediators from the UN, European Union and the United States meeting in Kigali said UN Security Council resolution 1804 be implemented immediately.
In March, the Security Council adopted the resolution urging the FDLR, the ex-FarFar/Interahamwe and other Rwandan armed groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to “immediately lay down their arms and leave the conflict area in East Congo”.
It is well-known that the presence of these illegal armed groups of Rwandese origin has since 1994 a destabilizing effect on the security situation in East Congo, the Council said.
A travel ban and asset freeze was imposed on the militias targeting its leaders who have traveled freely in Europe and DRC. Two of the top bosses Dr. Ignace Murwanashyaka and Mr. Callixte Mbarushimana are living Germany.
Talks collapse, rebel delegation accuses UN mediator
UN mediated talks to end fighting collapsed after rebel and government representatives failed to reach a ceasefire agreement over three days of talks Nairobi, reports from Nairobi indicate.
The UN special envoy and former Nigerian president chairing the meeting Olusegun Obasanjo said he pulled the plug on the talks because the rebel delegation had no decision-making power to proceed any further. But the rebels accused him of siding with the Congolese government and angrily threatened to pull out of the talks all together.
"At the moment [the rebel delegation is] a little bit unclear on their aims and their objectives," Obasanjo told reporters on Wednesday.
"The power given to the [rebel] delegation by its leadership appeared to have severely limited its ability to make decisions... They have a mandate to be here, but they don't have the power to take decisions."
Mr. Raymond Tshibanda, DR Congo's co-operation minister, is leading the government delegation, while the five-member rebel team is headed by Serge Kambasu Ngeve, the deputy executive secretary of the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP).
General Obasanjo said that talks broke down after Nkunda’s delegation asked to discuss the situation in the whole country as opposed to just the conflict in the east.
A delegation from the UN Envoys office is scheduled to travel to Goma, the rebel-ringed main city in the east of Congo, to meet General Laurent Nkunda, the CNDP leader.
"We cannot continue to sit with a mediation that has taken sides," Bertrand Bisimwa, a CNDP spokesman, told AFP news agency in Kinshasa by telephone.
"We prefer to withdraw to deal with the suffering of our people."
Earlier Jens Laerke, a UN spokesman, said there had been hope of reaching an agreement on a framework for substantive talks with a view to halting the conflict that has displaced more than 250,000 people in eastern Nord-Kivu province in just a few weeks.
Congo minerals
Paul Pumphrey, the founding member of Friends of the Congo, told Al Jazeera that the talks had not focused on "the root cause of the problem".
"This problem ... is created around the industrialised world wanting to get their hands on the mineral resources of the Congo," he said.
Outside forces want to rob the minerals out of the Congo and not pay a fair share for those minerals. And they've used this war as a means to push people off their land and not pay royalties and the government at all.
"Ninety per cent of [the Congo's] population do not make $100 a year. So where would they buy guns from? These guns coming into this war are coming in from other sources, not the local community.
"Industry works hand in hand with government ... Countries like the United States, like Great Britain, like France, like Japan, these are countries whose governments operate on the behest of their corporations.
"So I hold countries like the United States very much responsible for this war."
Louis Michel heads to Goma to meet Laurent Nkunda and then to Kinshasa where he is expected to talk to President Joseph Kabila.
Rwanda’s Foreign Affairs Minister said Louis Michel has been given a message from President Kagame for his DRC counterpart.
Additional reports from Agencies
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