Peace facilitator

Sir Ketumile Masire, the former president of Botswana and OAU-appointed peace facilitator for the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), told IRIN on Friday that the late DRC president Laurent-Desire Kabila had never been interested in peace and only signed the Lusaka agreement under duress. "At the time, he was definately an obstacle to peace, he only signed the (Lusaka) agreement because his allies lent on him," Masire said. Eighteen months ago all the main players in the two-year old DRC conflict signed a peace agreement in the Zambian capital, but Kabila failed to honour it. He was not prepared to recognise opposition parties or even talk to the rebel groups seeking to overthrow him. The Lusaka Peace Accord calls for the deployment of a UN force, the withdrawal of foreign powers and a democratic transition in the DRC. Masire, who was viewed with suspicion by Kinshasa, said that the DRC peace process could have moved forward more quickly if Kabila and his ministers had been more cooperative. "Kabila never really accepted me as the facilitator, but I don't think he was against me, he was against the whole process," Masire added. Calling for an immediate resumption of the inter-congolese dialogue, Masire said that he was waiting to see what kind of government emerged out of Kinshasa in the wake of Kabila's death. "Yes I'm optimistic about the Congolese peace process, but that's because things have been improving anyway," Masire said. "Recently, the deputy-chair of the Congolese cabinet invited me back as facilitator as long as I had a French-speaking counterpart. I told him I was prepared to accept a French-speaking adviser, and he agreed," he added. Masire pointed to Kabila's recent effort to bring together the Burundian government and rebel groups fighting to overthrow it, as an indication that maybe Kinshasa was finally warming to peace in the region. Body text here is justified