Inter-Congolese dialogue stalled

Wrangling continued in Sun City, South Africa, on Wednesday over which unarmed opposition parties should be allowed to participate in the inter-Congolese dialogue.

The leader of the armed rebel Mouvement pour la liberation du Congo (MLC), Jean-Pierre Bemba, has refused to take part in the dialogue, saying he is unhappy with the representation of the unarmed opposition groups, accusing some of those attending of being stooges for President Joseph Kabila's government.

The facilitator for the talks, Ketumile Masire, admitted on Monday that he was under fire from the other armed rebel group - the Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD) - and political parties over the way he had handled the representation issue. "We don't accept we were wrong. They maintain we were wrong. That's the point we're trying to settle," he said.

Most of the opposition, the RCD, plus Bemba's MLC, seemed to be lining up against the government over the list of unarmed opposition groups, an IRIN reporter observed on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the government was accusing the same groups of trying to scupper the talks.

In August 2001, at a pre-dialogue meeting in Gaborone, Botswana, there was a consensus that the 15 opposition representatives should expand their numbers to 60, "horizontally and vertically", by taking on board other parties as well as more members from their own.

By 15 December, a list still had not been agreed on, so it was agreed to invite parties which were not at Gaborone to write their own list, which was subsequently approved by the office of the facilitator, and is now being disputed.

A second issue at hand in Sun City was that of opposition seats being sold, IRIN was told by some delegates. These accusations came from delegates invited to the talks, as well as those who missed out on invitations to Sun City, and were not just a case of sour grapes, a diplomatic observer added.

Seats were sold by some of the 15 oppositionists who attended the pre-dialogue meeting in Gaborone last August, said one delegate, Alafuele Kalala, representing the Congolese opposition in the United States. "The parties who sold seats are in an embarrassing position," he said, "because most of the people they sold them to have not been invited, and they can't pay them back because they've spent the money." The wrangle over money was one of the main reasons why the talks were stalled, some observers maintained.

Leonard She Okitundu, the DRC foreign minister, had told journalists that the Kinshasa government was relying on Masire to resolve the representation problem, AFP reported. "For the government, there will be no question of disputing the facilitator's decision at the risk of compromising the whole process," he said. Masire, meanwhile, warned that Congolese were just as capable of wrecking their own dialogue as they were of making it a success.

DRC Communications and Press Minister Kikaya bin Karubi said the facilitator's office had chosen the representatives for the opposition parties, not the government. "And it's not for Mr Jean-Pierre Bemba to look at how another component is organising itself. All that he has to be concerned with is the MLC - the delegates of the MLC. It's not fair for him to judge who is coming as the internal opposition or not," allafrica.com quoted him as saying.

As tension rose in Sun City, other delegates at the dialogue were protesting against the interruption. "A failure would be in the interests of all the belligerents," AP quoted Kabare Rugemaninzi, a civil society representative, as saying.

The BBC quoted a senior official of the European Union, which is helping to fund the talks, as saying there was growing impatience with the Congolese factions and their inability to reach agreement.

"It would be helpful if the Congolese sent a message of unity in Sun City instead of a message of disunity," AP quoted the head of UN peacekeeping, Jean-Marie Guehenno, as saying during his tour of Rwanda and eastern DRC to prepare for the disarmament of militia fighters in the DRC.

Meanwhile, Kabila had met both Bemba and leader of RCD, Adolphe Onusumba, on Monday evening for talks, Reuters reported. Mediators shuttled between the various sides on Tuesday to try to resolve the impasse, hoping that round two of the dialogue would not meet the same fate as its predecessor in Addis Ababa last October, which broke up after several days.