Kinshasa rejoins inter-Congolese dialogue

A week after walking out of the inter-Congolese dialogue in Sun City, South Africa, in protest at what it called a Rwandan and rebel breach of the cease-fire, the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Wednesday agreed to resume its participation. A full session of the negotiations were planned for Thursday.

"We've decided to go back into the dialogue because the United Nations Security Council has met our requests," National Security Minister Mwenze Kongolo told a press conference in Sun City.

On 19 March, the Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution demanding the "immediate and unconditional" withdrawal of rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD) troops from Moliro, a town on the southwestern shore of Lake Tanganyika, Katanga Province, southeastern DRC. It said the RCD's taking of the town was a "major violation" of the Lusaka peace accord, signed in 1999.

The Goma-based rebel force took control of the town from DRC government forces on Saturday, 16 March, after an offensive reportedly launched two days earlier.

The Security Council also "demanded that the RCD-Goma withdraw from Pweto, which it occupied in contravention of the Kampala and Harare disengagement plan, so as to permit the demilitarisation of that location".

And it recalled that the northeastern city of Kisangani must also be demilitarised as stated in previous UN resolutions. Kisangani is the third largest city in the country and is hundreds of kilometres behind the ceasefire line.

"We're not going to enforce only one part of the resolution," Kongolo told reporters in Sun City. "The whole of the resolution should be enforced."

This meant, he said, that if any of the resolutions remained unenforced on Monday, 25 March, his government would reserve the right to suspend further talks.

The Rwandan-backed RCD has said that it is willing to hand Moliro over to the UN observer mission in the DRC (known by its French acronym MONUC), but has resisted pressure to demilitarise Kisangani - a centre of the diamond trade in northern DRC - for over a year.

Meanwhile, a meeting of the political committee representing six state signatories to the Lusaka peace accord (DRC, Rwanda, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia) and two rebel movements, RCD and Mouvement pour la liberation du Congo (MLC), began late on Wednesday in Lusaka, Zambia.

"The meeting has started behind closed doors and will continue to the early hours of morning," Reuters quoted a source as saying. The meeting had been called to get a commitment from all concerned that fighting would not recur during the inter-Congolese dialogue, it added.

Meanwhile, a planned meeting of the heads of state signatories to the Lusaka Accord has been postponed from 22 March until 27 March, according to AFP news agency. DRC Foreign Minister Leonard She Okitundu said the postponement had occurred because President Joseph Kabila was travelling to China this week, it added.

National Security Minister Kongolo said it was hoped that a deadline for the withdrawal of foreign troops from DRC would be announced at this meeting.

Kongolo also expressed the hope that, with further dialogue, it would be possible to apply an agreement made by parties to the dialogue in Gaborone, Botswana, last year, whereby free movement of people and goods would be allowed throughout the territory of the DRC.