Wrangling continues among ICD delegates in Sun City

The parties to the inter-Congolese dialogue (ICD) in Sun City, South Africa, appeared to be closer to a compromise by Monday evening on the question of how the unarmed opposition should be represented - the issue which has blocked progress within the dialogue for the past week.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) government delegation has proposed including a total of 70 opposition delegates, who have been accredited by the facilitators of the dialogue, while a core group of 15 undisputed opposition parties, who had earlier rejected the inclusion of 20 extra delegates to their group, has now proposed to accept 10 of them, and to allow the other 10 "specific status" as observers. Thus, both groups are effectively advocating an expansion of the delegation from 55 to 70.

The opposition parties had earlier rejected the extra delegates, accusing them of being too close to President Joseph Kabila's government.

Whether the other groups at the talks - the two rebel groups, Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD) and the Mouvement pour la liberation du Congo (MLC), plus the civil society group - accept this compromise remains to be seen, however.

On Sunday, RCD secretary-general Azarias Ruberwa said the unarmed opposition group should not be expanded beyond 55.

The negotiations over the opposition quota were expected to reconvene on Tuesday, with a series of announcements by all the main groups scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. The 15 opposition parties have blamed the current impasse on "bad management by the dialogue facilitator [Ketumile Masire] and his team".

Meanwhile, the government delegation has blamed the hold-up on a boycott of the talks by the MLC, and "abusive interference by the RCD and MLC".

Earlier, on Monday, delegates from the civil society group staged a demonstration to announce a hunger strike to last until the dialogue resumed. About 35 out of 70 civil society delegates attended the demonstration, and most appeared to favour an "inclusive" solution to the problem of the 20 extra opposition delegates, an IRIN reporter observed.

"The people of the Democratic Republic of Congo are looking to this meeting to end their misery," said a spokesman for the civil society group, Cherubin Okende. "We've been here for eight days, and so far all the politicians have done is eat, drink and amuse themselves. They spend time in the casino, and at the weekend many of them went off to Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town."

"They can expect reprisals from the people if they go back without solutions," he added.

The religious leaders at the dialogue on Monday held a plenary prayer meeting, at which Cardinal Frederic Etsou also called for an inclusive solution to the impasse. "You can't wash your face with one finger, you need to use all of them," he said, "and we need all our fingers to rebuild our country."

Even if the impasse is surmounted, not all of the delegates supposed to take part in the ICD have been able to reach Sun City, however. Firmin Yangambi, one of two delegates appointed to represent civil society in Kisangani, eastern DRC, told IRIN that he had been blocked in Kinshasa, prevented from getting a visa to go to Sun City.

The RCD, which controls much of eastern DRC, had confiscated his passport in January, which meant he had been unable to depart for South Africa with the other members of his delegation, he said. His passport was returned to him on 25 February, the day the ICD opened, and he is now in Kinshasa waiting to be granted a visa. He hoped to be able to reach the talks by the end of this week, he said, almost two weeks after they opened.

Deliberately delayed and running out of money, he told IRIN on Tuesday: "I am sick of all this. I am completely abandoned and am now thinking of just going back to Kisangani."