Troops out pressure mounts

As regional leaders gathered in Zambia on Monday for talks on reviving a crumbling peace agreement in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), attention in Zimbabwe has turned to the relationship between President Robert Mugabe and the Kinshasa government he supports. Martin Rupiya of the Zimbabwe-based Institute of Defence Studies told IRIN that he expected Zimbabwe - which has deployed about 12,000 troops on the side of DRC President Laurent-Desire Kabila - to put pressure on Kabila to allow the deployment of UN peacekeepers, thereby facilitating the withdrawal of Zimbabwean forces. “There is a groundswell of internal pressure on the Zimbabwean government to withdraw its troops from DRC,” said Rupiya. He claimed that Mugabe is likely to urge Kabila to reach a settlement with the Rwandan and Ugandan-backed rebels fighting to oust him, adding that the pressure on the government is likely to increase in the next few months. “I don’t see Zimbabwe keeping its troops in DRC beyond the middle of next year,” Rupiya said. He added that the pressure on Zimbabwe to withdraw from DRC is a result of the country’s economic crisis. He said a foreign currency shortage, fuel increases, and donor criticism are some of the factors contributing to dissatisfaction among Zimbabweans on the continued spending on the DRC conflict. The government has admitted spending US $3 million a month on its military deployment in the DRC, an intervention it has justified on the grounds of defending a fellow Southern African Development Community (SADC) member against Rwandan and Ugandan-backed aggression. “The new Zimbabwean Finance Minister, Simba Makoni, has also publicly stated that the government must learn to live within its means, which can be interpreted as an indication that less money would be spent on the war in DRC,” said Rupiya.