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Cracks appear in peace deal

    KANO

    Rwanda has said Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has no mandate to broker a peace deal for DRC. The 'EastAfrican' weekly on Monday cited Rwandan Presidency Minister Patrick Mazimhaka as saying his country "recognises only President Frederick Chiluba of Zambia in the peace effort because he was assigned the task by SADC [Southern African Development Community]".

    Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and DRC leader Laurent-Desire Kabila put their names to a peace agreement in Libya during
    a meeting last Sunday. But Mazimhaka said it was "unfortunate that Colonel Gaddafi is taking on the role [of mediator] without involving the protagonists in the conflict".

    Uganda's semi-official 'Sunday Vision' described the accord as "an agreement which was not an agreement" and commented that it was "dead before it was ever signed". It said Museveni signed the accord to keep his "long time ally", Gaddafi, happy.

    Another DRC rebel leader, Jean-Pierre Bemba of the Equateur-based
    Mouvement de liberation congolais (MLC), said at the weekend there could be no peace deal between Kabila and Uganda without the agreement of all the parties to the conflict. "I think there is no ceasefire agreement available as long as all the countries, all the parties involved in this war, are not invited", he told Radio France Internationale. "You cannot say today that you finish the problem of Congo if Zimbabwe is not around the table, [as well as] Namibia, Angola, Sudan, the Interahamwe, the RCD and my group."

    This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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