Rebel groups begin “inter-Kivu dialogue”

Congolese rebel leaders gathered in the eastern DRC town of Bukavu on Saturday to begin four days of talks seeking to end ethnic divisions and guerrilla warfare with government-backed groups in the eastern provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu, AP reported. What has been dubbed the “inter-Kivu dialogue” was organised by the Rwandan-backed Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD-Goma) movement as a preparatory meeting to the nation-wide inter-Congolese dialogue due to begin on 15 October in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

RCD-Goma Foreign Affairs Minister Joseph Mudumbi told AP that problems of insecurity and ethnic divisions were “more acute” in the Kivus than anywhere else in [DRC].

“The Kivus must be reunited and pacified if decisions of the forthcoming national political dialogue are to be implemented,” he said.

However, civil society organisations have threatened to boycott the “inter-Kivu dialogue” because of their opposition to RCD-Goma leadership, and the Congolese Mayi-Mayi militia reportedly issued a statement on Saturday signed by Anselme Enerunga, spokesperson of Mayi-Mayi leader Brig Gen Joseph Padiri. Read on government-controlled RTNC TV in Kinshasa, it was said to have stated that “we [the Mayi-Mayi] are not represented and will never be represented in such a meeting so long as the inter-Congolese dialogue, which we will all attend, does not endorse the need for such a forum, as Kivu is not a separate state and the Kivu people are not a separate people. The conclusions of the so-called inter-Kivu dialogue will only be binding upon its participants.”