May 11, 2004
The interim government in Democratic Republic of Congo on Monday urged warlords from the strife-torn Ituri region to back the vast central African country's transition to peace and democracy. Vice President Azarias Ruberwa said talks with some 20 warlords that opened in Kinshasa Monday were "a last chance meeting for peace" in the northeastern Ituri region, where fighting has continued despite peace being restored to most of the country after a five-year war.
"The country is counting on you to back the transition process. You must put an end to violence," he said in a speech opening the meeting. Ruberwa is one of four vice presidents in a transition regime set up in June last year, two months after a peace pact was enacted to end DRC's war, which claimed some 2.5 million lives both in combat and through hunger and disease. Hundreds have died in fighting and massacres in Ituri since the broader peace pact for DRC was enacted. Since 1999, 55,000 people have died in the northeastern region near Uganda and half a million have been forced from their homes.
The DRC government is hoping that the militia leaders from Ituri at the talks will endorse an "act of commitment" and lay down their arms. "This day of reflection is organised with a view to restoring peace and the authority of the state quickly across the entire country, but notably in Ituri," said Ruberwa. Interior and Security Minister Theophile Mbemba Fundu said the conflict in Ituri had "very much weakened" the peace process, while fanning inter-ethnic hatred in the region, still controlled by militias whose members are drawn mainly from two warring ethnic groups, the majority Lendu and minority Hema. He vowed to bring to justice the perpetrators of crimes against humanity in Ituri.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's special representative to DRC, William Lacy Swing, said the two-day meeting was likely to be the last chance for all sides involved in the Ituri conflict to pull their region out of crisis. "This meeting, which is the second since August 2003, will give -- doubtless for the last time -- all the protagonists in the Ituri conflict the chance to confirm their commitment to finally pull this region out of the abyss it plunged into five years ago," said Swing.
He said the United Nations, which has 4,700 peacekeepers deployed in Ituri, "will not accept that the massacres continue." The UN force took over last September from French-led European Union troops to restore security in Ituri. The head of a breakaway faction of the UPC, self-styled "General" Floribert Kisembo, told AFP that restoring peace in Ituri "depends on the involvement of everyone in the transition." In February, the UPC formed an alliance with two other armed groups in Ituri, with all three vowing to demobilise their fighters and reintegrate them into civilian life, or, as their leaders want, into DRC's new armed forces. But many observers believe that the real motive is to become integrated into transition institutions to escape possible prosecution for war crimes.
Meanwhile, the National Episcopal Conference of Congo (CENCO) denounced in a statement released Monday in Kinshasa "the ambiguous and strange" behaviour of some Congolese who are intent on thwarting DRC's renaissance. "We denounce the ambiguous and strange behaviour of compatriots who... are trying to cause the motor of the transition to break down and abort the country's take-off," a statement signed by archbishop of Kinshasa, Cardinal Frederic Etsou, said. "Every time the transition starts to fly, dark and negative forces try to block the process, with the unspoken intention of slowing down the installation of rule of law and of prolonging the suffering of our people," said the statement.
It also accused some groups in DRC "of openly serving foreign security interests rather than the well-being and survival of their fellow citizens." Political figures and non-government groups have accused the former rebel Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD) of siding with Kigali last month, when the UN Mission in DRC (MONUC) accused Rwandan troops of illegally entering DRC. Rwanda, which backed the RCD during the war, has denied the accusations.
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