UK and France exhort all parties to join dialogue

The British and French ambassadors to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) issued a joint communique on Wednesday urging all parties to the inter-Congolese dialogue to attend the national peace and reconciliation talks due to be held in South Africa next week.

"France and the United Kingdom are extremely concerned by the declarations of the RCD-Goma [the Rwandan-backed Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie armed opposition movement], of the MLC [the Ugandan-backed Mouvement de liberation du Congo armed opposition movement], and of certain unarmed opposition parties, who have threatened not to take part in the dialogue on February 25 at Sun City," said the statement.

The peace talks are an integral part of the 1999 Lusaka cease-fire agreement.

"This could jeopardise the national dialogue and runs contrary to the parties' commitment to install a new political system in the DRC as well as a lasting peace," it noted.

"This underlines once again that certain people are concentrating on the short term," the statement continued. "The parties have the obligation to respond to the aspirations of all Congolese to live in peace and stability and in a democratic regime. France and the United Kingdom exhort all parties to the dialogue to assume this obligation. It's their responsibility to attend the meeting in Sun City and to discuss their differences.

"France and Great Britain as well as the whole international community consider it is time that the dialogue produces some concrete results and would not understand if the Congolese parties in their entirety did not engage themselves totally in the meeting at Sun City and did not approach it in an open spirit of compromise and seriousness," it added. "The Congolese people deserve this."

Asked if the French and British governments were at the end of their patience with the parties to the dialogue, French Ambassador Gildas Le Lidec said: "Not just us, but the Congolese people."

"Our governments' patience is not limitless," said British ambassador Jim Atkinson.