Comprehensive accord to supersede Sun City, Kinshasa says

Comprehensive accord to supersede Sun City, Kinshasa says

The Sun City accord will eventually be superseded by an comprehensive power-sharing transitional government agreement, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) government spokesman, Kikaya Bin Karubi, told IRIN on Tuesday.

"The signatories and non-signatories recognise that the agreement reached in Sun City created a dynamic that led to the signature of the Pretoria accord [between the governments of the DRC and neighbouring Rwanda], which in turn has opened the way to an all-inclusive accord," he said.

Kabila, Kikaya added, had taken this decision on the all-inclusive talks after consulting with all parties to the Sun City accord. Kikaya had just issued a government declaration calling on all signatories and non-signatories to hold talks aimed at reaching a global accord. The declaration did not, however, name a date or venue for these negotiations.

The parties to Sun City accord, signed in South Africa at the end of the inter-Congolese dialogue in April, were the Kinshasa government, the Ugandan-backed Mouvement de liberation du Congo (MLC), a majority of unarmed political opposition groups, civil society organisations, and Ugandan-backed dissident factions of the Rwandan-backed rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD-Goma).

Under the agreement, current DRC President Joseph Kabila would retain his position, while the MLC leader, Jean-Pierre Bemba, would serve as prime minister of a transitional government leading to democratic elections.

The mainstream RCD-Goma, the Union pour la democratie et le progres social and a number of other unarmed political opposition groups refused to sign the Sun City accord, calling it "a big joke". Kinshasa, on the other hand, described it as "an important step" in the resolution of the DRC crisis, but, four months after the conclusion of the deal, there is still no transitional government, due to continuing disagreement over who would be in charge of a united army comprising troops from all sides.

As for what this would mean for Bemba, the prime minister-designate, Kikaya told IRIN that Bemba could not serve in that role "unless it is accepted by a global accord". Nevertheless, he said, Kinshasa wanted the unity of Sun City signatories to remain intact. "A mechanism of consultations was recommended," he added, "with a view towards capitalising on the gains made in Sun City."

Neither Bemba, who cancelled what was to be his first trip to Kinshasa since taking up arms four years ago, nor the MLC made any immediate comment on the Kinshasa communique. "We will give our official position with regard to this serious declaration on Wednesday," an MLC representative in Kinshasa said.