Prospects for peace increase as region moves into 2004

The year 2004 is set to be a momentous one in the Great Lakes region in terms of its peace prospects, if the achievements made in 2003 are anything to go by. Across the region - right from Burundi, the Central African Republic (CAR), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to Rwanda - the code words in 2003 seemed to have been transition to peace. The UN and the African Union (AU), the continent's foremost political body, are making preparations for a regional peace and development conference, during which themes such as peace and security, democracy and good governance, economic development and regional integration, and humanitarian and social issues will feature. There are suggestions that the conference could be held in Tanzania in November. In the course of 2003, the main rebel movement in Burundi signed a power-sharing agreement with the transitional government and was integrated into government institutions; a transitional government of national unity was installed in the DRC in June; the 15 March coup in the CAR saw the former army chief of staff ascend to power, resulting in a return to relative stability; and Rwanda, nine years after the 1994 genocide, held its first-ever democratic presidential and parliamentary elections. DRC The determination to move from years of turmoil to peace and democracy is most obvious in the DRC, the largest country in the region and the third-largest in Africa, where President Joseph Kabila is reported to be committed to sticking to the transitional government timetable to hold democratic elections in 2005. Kabila's spokesman, Mulegwa Zihindula, told journalists on 8 January 2004 in the capital, Kinshasa, that the president was committed to organising elections on time and that he felt the move would greatly contribute to the building of a strong DRC. News reports following Zihindula's announcement indicated that South African President Thabo Mbeki was due to start an official visit to the country on 9 January, a sign that the DRC is keen on resuming normal bilateral relations with other African states. Under an agreement signed in April 2003 in Pretoria, South Africa, a power-sharing transitional government of national unity was installed in DRC in June, with Kabila and leaders of former rebel movements setting up government institutions that had been devastated by more than six years of civil war. However, all is not smooth sailing, inasmuch as restoring order in such a vast country has proved to be a rather slow process. The eastern provinces of North and South Kivu, and Ituri District in Orientale Province in the northeast are still experiencing sporadic fighting, with Ituri largely remaining under the control of rival militias, although a strengthened UN peacekeeping force is gradually restoring security there. Moreover, the transitional government has yet to establish an independent electoral commission to oversee the elections scheduled to be held 24 months after the government's installation. Although the new parliament in December approved a law providing for the setting up of such a body, it has yet to be acted on. The government is also struggling with establishing proper control of areas previously under rebel administration, while civilians in many parts of the country still face hardships such as shortages of food, water and other basic needs. Poverty levels remain low, with most Congolese said to be living on less than US $1 daily. BURUNDI In Burundi, the second half of a three-year transitional government is due to end towards the end of 2004, following which democratic elections are due to be held, more than 10 years after civil war broke out in the tiny central African state. The country's hope for peace was greatly boosted on 5 January when the only rebel faction, which had hitherto refused to enter into peace negotiations with the government, announced that it was willing to meet President Domitien Ndayizeye for talks. The announcement by the Forces nationales de liberation (FNL) faction led by Agathon Rwasa, follows December's integration into the government of the of the main rebel movement, the Conseil national pour la defense de la democratie–Forces pour la defense de la democratie (CNDD-FDD), led by Pierre Nkurunziza. In November, Nkurunziza was named minister of state for good governance, the third most powerful position in the government after Ndayizeye and Vice-President Alphonse-Marie Kadege, who must henceforth consult him on matters concerning state security and government appointments. On 6 January, Ndayizeye signed a decree appointing 33 members of the Joint Military High Command, 20 from the army and 13 from Nkurunziza's CNDD-FDD, in accordance with a Technical Forces Agreement signed in Pretoria on 2 November 2003. The setting up of the joint command precedes the formation of the new National Defence Forces, following the signing of a power-sharing agreement between the government and Nkurunziza's CNDD-FDD on 16 November in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The announcement by Rwasa's FNL that it was willing to meet Ndayizeye caught many Burundians by surprise, and represented a major shift in the faction's policy. The meeting, scheduled to be held in January 2004 at a venue outside the country yet to be revealed, will definitely expedite the country's progress towards peace, given that the faction is now the only one being held responsible for the sporadic fighting in an around the capital, Bujumbura. The province of Bujumbura Rural, which surrounds Bujumbura, is an FNL stronghold and its fighters have staged a number of attacks on the city in the course of 2003. Ndayizeye's cabinet reshuffle on 23 November 2003 to incorporate Nkurunziza's CNDD-FDD illustrated the country's determination to move towards peace after 10 years of civil strife in which at least 300,000 Burundians have died. Besides naming Nkurunziza the minister for good governance, Ndayizeye appointed three other CNDD-FDD members to ministerial posts. With Nkurunziza's CNDD-FDD now part of the transitional government, ethnic integration and eventually democracy are now within grasp of Burundians. CAR For the CAR, the March 2003 coup by Francois Bozize marked a turning point in the country's quest for peace and stability. Having ousted President Ange-Felix Patasse, Bozize established a transitional government incorporating members of the various political, religious and social affiliations, and embarked on restoring security to the country after the six months during which his rebels fought government forces. Most of the fighting was concentrated in the north of the country, whose inhabitants are still recovering from the consequent devastation wrought there. Bozize's administration saw to it that civil servants, who had not received salaries for more than 30 months, started receiving monthly payments from April 2003. However, towards the end of the year - October, November and December - the government encountered difficulties in meeting its salary commitments, culminating in a recent announcement that it could no longer guarantee payment of salaries on fixed dates. Despite strides made by the administration towards restoring peace, including Bozize's own declaration that he would not contest the presidency at the end of the transitional period early in 2005, in his latest report to the UN Security Council, Secretary-General Kofi Annan expressed concern over the re-emergence of rapes, hold-ups and civil rights violations being perpetrated in the capital, Bangui, and the country's hinterland. In the report, covering the period from July to December, Annan appealed to the international community to lend its support to efforts to restore security, urging a "gracious response" to the UN's consolidated annual appeal for both humanitarian and electoral assistance the CAR. "If this concern is not taken into account, the Central African Republic will return to a situation of instability, with incalculable consequences for its people and the entire subregion, where peace remains fragile," Annan said in the report. RWANDA In Rwanda, the only country in the region not to have seen much turmoil in recent years, the first-ever multiparty elections were held in August and September, ending a transitional period that began in 1994, soon after the April-June genocide that claimed the lives of at least 800,000 Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus. Despite claims of intimidation and harassment of opposition candidates during the elections, Rwanda distinguished itself as a world leader in gender balance as far as political representation is concerned, with almost half of the elected parliamentarians being women. The elections saw the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) win a landslide victory. Moreover, the country adopted a new constitution in May 2003, under which women are entitled to hold at least 30 percent of all posts in government and other decision-making bodies. At the same time, with relative stability being experienced in the DRC, hundreds of former Hutu combatants who fled into what was then Zaire after the genocide have returned home, boosting the Rwanda's efforts to achieve peace and ethnic reconciliation. A Kigali-based officer of the UN Mission in the DRC, known as MONUC, told IRIN on 5 January that a total of 1,455 refugees, including former members of the hardline Hutu Interahamwe militias and of the former Forces armees rwandaises, known as ex-Far, the two groups most held responsible for the genocide, returned home in November and December 2003. In 1997, the government of President Paul Kagame of the RPF established a Demobilisation and Reintegration Commission for the reintegration of ex-combatants. The programme is designed to foster reconciliation and to contribute towards poverty reduction and the strengthening of peace. As the country approaches the 10th anniversary of the genocide, scheduled to be observed in April 2004, the government has commended efforts by the AU in promoting the adoption by the UN General Assembly of a resolution designating 7 April 2004 as International Day of Reflection on the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. ROC With at least four countries in the region poised to achieve greater stability in 2004, the only country whose efforts seem to have stagnated is the Republic of Congo (ROC), which, despite a peace agreement signed in March 2003 between the government and the main rebel movement, little progress has been recorded since. Outbreaks of the deadly haemorrhagic fever Ebola struck parts of the ROC, resulting in the deaths of several dozen people, the conflict-ridden Pool region remained unstable, and fighting was reported near the capital, Brazzaville, with the police announcing on 20 December a three-month crackdown on troublemakers, following two nights of unrest and violence in the city's suburbs.