Masire meets three rebel leaders

Former Botswana President Ketumile Masire has secured the participation of the three Congolese rebel groups in a 5-7 June meeting aimed at preparing for the inter-Congolese negotiations on the political future of the DRC, diplomatic sources told IRIN on Wednesday. Masire, the OAU-appointed facilitator of the political negotiations provided for in the Lusaka ceasefire agreement, travelled last week to Goma, Bunia and Gbadolite where he consulted with, respectively, Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD) leader Emile Ilunga, RCD-Mouvement de liberation (RCD-ML) leader Ernest Wamba dia Wamba and Mouvement de liberation du Congo (MLC) leader Jean-Pierre Bemba, as well as other senior officials of the three rebel movements, the sources said. “They agreed to participate in the preparatory talks, but the exact details of who and how many will represent them still have to be worked out,” one source said.

Masire then travelled to Kinshasa on Sunday to consult with President Laurent-Desire Kabila and seek the government’s support for the preparatory talks, but it was unclear whether the two men had met prior to Masire’s scheduled Wednesday morning departure from Kinshasa. “The holding of the preparatory talks now depends on Kabila,” a source said.