Government delegation walks out of peace talks

The inter-Congolese dialogue in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, was suspended on Sunday until a date to be decided, following a breakdown in communications between the organisers and the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The government delegation left Addis Ababa on Friday, to the surprise of the facilitator Ketumile Masire. "I don't know why they've left. We were supposed to be meeting them for consultations before a plenary meeting on Sunday," he told reporters.

An opposition party leader, Joseph Olenghankoy, accused the government delegates of fleeing "secretly in the night". A joint communique issued on Saturday and signed by 10 of the 14 Congolese opposition parties at Addis Ababa held the government "entirely responsible" for the potential blockage of the talks. The rebel movements made the same accusation.

In his final communique from Addis Ababa, Masire said on Saturday he had done his best since the August pre-dialogue meeting in Gaborone, Botswana, to implement decisions taken at that venue. "Midway through this preparation I informed all the parties about difficulties encountered and consulted all of them on the decisions to be taken," he said.

Some 10 days before the dialogue he announced that there was only enough money to call 80 delegates, initially, to Addis Ababa instead of 330, as envisaged earlier. "It appeared to me that all the components (parties to the talks) had agreed on the principle of holding a reduced meeting in Addis Ababa on 15 October as scheduled," he said.

However, the Addis Ababa talks never took-off as the government insisted that the dialogue could not begin until 330 people were present. DRC Foreign Affairs Minister Leonard She Okitundu said earlier that the government had tried to find out whether the initial meeting of 80 delegates was to be the official dialogue or just a technical meeting, and had received no clear response.

Masire adjourned Saturday's session until the next meeting in South Africa, with no date set. Members of his team were saying that they hoped it could be reconvened within six weeks or earlier.