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Rebels want UN to force peace on Kabila

    NAIROBI

    Senior Congolese rebel leader Bizima Karaha on Monday told Reuters news agency that the armed opposition would ask the United Nations to try and pressure DRC President Laurent-Desire Kabila into honouring the Lusaka peace accord signed last year. “We are looking to the United Nations to support the Lusaka peace accord. We expect the United Nations to do its job and use its influence to get Kabila to comply,” Karaha said.

    But a senior Rwandan official, attending the UN’s Millennium General Assembly, told IRIN that speculation a summit of heads of state involved in the conflict would take place on the sidelines of the New York meeting was unfounded.

    “I understand that key leaders such as Kabila and Dos Santos of Angola will not be attending which makes it impossible to hold a summit,” said the Rwandan official. Numerous ceasefires have been reported on both sides of the conflict since the agreement was signed by all warring parties in July 1999. A regional heads of state summit, held in the Zambian capital Lusaka last month, ended in deadlock with Kabila rejecting the OAU-supported facilitator of the inter-Congolese dialogue, former Botswana President Ketumile Masire.

    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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