Focus on international reaction to peace accord

International reaction has been quite favourable to the peace agreement signed on Tuesday between the presidents of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda, Joseph Kabila and Paul Kagame, with unanimous praise for the mediation of South Africa, and for President Thabo Mbeki and Deputy President Jacob Zuma in particular. Under the deal (full text posted at DRC-RWANDA: Text of the Pretoria Memorandum of Understanding), the DRC will round up and extradite an estimated 12,000 Hutu militia troops generally held responsible for perpetrating Rwanda's 1994 genocide, and said to be hiding within DRC territory, UN News reported. The action is slated to begin within a month from 30 July, to be followed 15 days later by Rwanda's withdrawal of 30,000 of its troops now inside the DRC. The Rwandan withdrawal is meant to be completed within a 45-day period. Details on the force expected to monitor the agreement have not yet been finalised, but both sides are required to pass on all available information on the Hutu militia forces to the UN mission in the DRC (known by its French acronym, MONUC). KOFI ANNAN UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan "welcome[d] the renewed commitment" of the governments of the DRC and Rwanda "to a mutually agreed settlement process, including a cessation of hostilities, aimed at making concrete progress towards peace in the region". Annan extended his appreciation to the government of South Africa, and President Thabo Mbeki in particular, for their role in bringing the two governments together. The statement added that the UN "stands ready to support the implementation of the agreement and looks forward to discussing the practical modalities with the parties concerned". UN SECURITY COUNCIL The members of the UN Security Council have called on the parties to the Lusaka peace agreement to hold talks with the UN as soon as possible on the practical implementation of the accord. Council President Jeremy Greenstock of the United Kingdom said in a press statement that the members welcomed the agreement and looked forward to examining it in detail. They also anticipated hearing the considered view of the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations and of MONUC in due course, he added. "There's a lot of work there for the UN to do, but a lot of discussion is needed to find out exactly what that is," he said, noting that the Council was likely to have a briefing on the agreement early next week. UNHCR The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva "heralded the signing in Pretoria of an agreement between the governments of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda as a milestone that could pave the way to peace and the return of some 390,000 Congolese refugees scattered across a dozen countries in the region". "We certainly see this as an encouraging sign and hope that a peaceful future is now on the horizon for the Congo," said Ebrima Camara, the deputy director of UNHCR's Africa Bureau. "We look forward to the day when all Congolese refugees can return home to participate in the reconstruction of their country." UNHCR said that the humanitarian cost of the conflict in the DRC had been enormous, with up to three million dead and an estimated two million people internally displaced. An estimated 16 million people were currently in need of food aid. Forty percent of children were illiterate, and two out of five died in infancy, it said. While speculating that some refugees might now decide to return spontaneously, UNHCR said it expected most Congolese refugees "to adopt a more prudent attitude, and wait for further developments in the peace process before opting for return". The majority of Congolese refugees, most of them in Tanzania and Zambia, originated from areas where Hutu Interahamwe and former Rwandan army militias were said to be located, it reported. UNHCR added that inasmuch as the conflicts in the Great Lakes region were so closely interlinked, the organisation was "hoping that the implementation of the agreement could spur the Burundi peace process and lead to an improvement in the general security and political situation in Rwanda". DRC PRESIDENT JOSEPH KABILA Interviewed jointly by AllAfrica.com and Reuters on Tuesday, Kabila said he "sense[d] that this time there is a genuine commitment by the political leaders to ensure that we succeed in reaching our aim of peace... I shall play my part to ensure that peace succeeds." Asked if three months was long enough to implement the agreement, he said that he and Kagame would meet at the end of every month on a rotational basis, in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, the DRC capital, Kinshasa, and perhaps also in Pretoria, South Africa "to review progress and to ensure that we stay on course". "These meetings will take stock of what is happening, where we are heading, what we are doing wrong and what we need to fix," he added. "So people must have the will, and people should be committed. We will ensure that the [peace] pact is implemented and any obstacles quickly removed. People should be committed and realise that it is peace we want and it is peace we shall get." RWANDAN PRESIDENT PAUL KAGAME Asked on Monday by the BBC what specific action the international community could take in the peace process, Kagame replied: "The international community should come out forcefully in saying, ‘we can’t allow the militia to continue to cause problems in the region.’ Secondly, they should say, ‘we can’t allow any government or any individual to be associated with these people.’ And I think if they came out very strongly on these two points, this could have an effect even without having to deploy a number of forces or a lot of money. A strong statement backed up by a strong political would be helpful." On whether Rwanda would implement the peace agreement, Kagame said: "Rwanda is very eager to have it work." He said Rwanda would be happy to withdraw its troops from the DRC, adding: "This will enable us direct our resources into other areas of development." BELGIUM Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel described the accord as "an important step towards resolution of the crisis in the Great Lakes region". He called on all Congolese parties “to seize the political opportunity” created by the accord. "This, together with the dynamic created by the Sun City accord, should facilitate the reaching of an inclusive accord for an internal political transition," he said. Belgium, he added, had already contributed two million euros (about US $1.96 million) to the World Bank fund for the demobilisation and reintegration of armed groups in the Great Lakes region. FRANCE The French foreign ministry "hailed" the signing of the accord saying, "The efforts of the South African mediation contributed significantly to this step forward." France encouraged DRC and Rwanda "to implement this accord as soon as possible, with a constructive spirit". The ministry added, "We will closely follow [the accord's] implementation." UNITED KINGDOM UK Secretary of State for International Development Clare Short said, "This is a historical turning point for Africa with progress towards peace and stability in the DRC, peace in Angola and progress towards peace in Sudan." She warned that previous peace initiatives had been slow, and said: "We must not let progress slip like it did with Lusaka. This is a great opportunity. We must make it work." Short was scheduled to meet Kabila on Wednesday in Kinshasa to discuss UK support for peace building and development in the region. The UK Department for International Development has committed the equivalent of US $15.744 million to humanitarian and peace building measures in the DRC for 2002-2003 and, in April, Short announced a further contribution of $25 million to an international fund supporting disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of warring parties in the Great Lakes Region, including the DRC. USA The US State Department deputy spokesman, Phil Reeker, said the US "welcome[d] the agreement" and believed it was "an important step forward in resolving the long-standing conflict in the Congo". He said the US would "continue encouraging implementation of the agreement to help bring about a lasting peace in the Congo". Reeker declined to comment about specifics of the accord, such as whether the US thought the proposed deadlines were realistic, or if the US would provide any financial or logistical support. SOME ANALYSTS WARY CNN reported that some analysts were wary of the accord's prospects for success after the collapse of previous ceasefires, and said the latest deal was fraught with difficulties. "Any step forward is welcome, but the prospects of implementing this accord are completely unrealistic," Alison Des Forges, a regional expert with Human Rights Watch, was quoted by CNN as saying. She Forges said the accord appeared to assume that all Rwandan Hutu armed groups operating in the DRC were guilty of participating in the 1994 genocide, but this was not the case. "The terms used to describe the combatants are inappropriate. They are all described as persons who were involved in the genocide. But we know that this is not the case," she said. CNN cited the International Crisis Group as having said that most Hutu rebels now in the DRC were not part of the armed forces and militias that presided over the Rwandan genocide, and that up to 80 percent of were post-genocide recruits. RCD-GOMA INVITED TO JOIN Meanwhile, news agencies reported that Mbeki had invited the Rwandan-backed rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie, which did not sign the April 2002 Sun City agreement among the Kabila government, the Ugandan-backed Mouvement de liberation du Congo, and a large majority of political opposition parties and civil society organisations, to enter into talks with the signatories, thereby to enable the DRC to form a transitional government leading to democratic elections.