No commitments made at Lusaka peace summit

A one-day summit held in Lusaka, Zambia, on the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) peace process ended on Wednesday evening with no new commitments made by the participating regional leaders.

The respective presidents of the DRC, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa attended the meeting, while Ugandan and Angola were represented at ministerial level. The leaders of the rebel movements in the DRC were not present.

A communique issued after the four-hour closed-door meeting reaffirmed the parties' existing commitments under the Lusaka ceasefire agreement, underlining "the necessity to accelerate the withdrawal of foreign troops", but not mentioning a timetable.

The communique called for the deployment of more UN troops before the final withdrawal of foreign forces. It noted positive developments at the inter-Congolese dialogue (ICD) in Sun City, and called on the participants to reach a political agreement as fast as possible, to restore the country's unity.

Commenting on the summit's failure to result in any new initiative, Olivier Kamitatu, the secretary-general of the rebel Mouvement pour la liberation du Congo (MLC), said his movement had been hoping for a decision on the withdrawal of foreign troops, and for a statement on the need to disarm "negative forces".

There had been widespread rumours in Sun City earlier that Ketumile Masire, the facilitator of the ICD, would use the summit to press the heads of state to agree on a power-sharing formula in the DRC. A possible offer to have been made was that President Joseph Kabila would remain as president, with the MLC leader, Jean-Pierre Bemba as prime minister and the secretary-general of the Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD), Azarias Ruberwa, as president of parliament, one source told IRIN.

A spokesman for the RCD in Sun City, Thomas Nzira Timana, said such a proposal would not meet with RCD approval.

Meanwhile, progress is being held up at the ICD by disagreement in two of the five committees, where the political system and national defence are being discussed. "The talks are blocked in those committees," said an RCD spokesman, Kin Kiey Mulumba, on Tuesday.

The political committee had managed to agree on the need to preserve the sovereignty and unity of the DRC, but failed so far to reach agreement on the details of a transitional constitution, and in particular whether a new president needed to be appointed at the ICD, he said. The rebel groups are insisting that a new president be appointed to head the transition, an idea ruled out by government officials.

A subcommittee on the political and legal system was subsequently set up on Tuesday to try to find convergence between the positions of the government and the other parties. However, the subcommittee spent most of the day arguing about who should be its rapporteur, finally agreeing to appoint five people, plus its chairman, as joint rapporteurs, a source at the ICD told IRIN.

The defence committee also remained split on Tuesday, over the issue of who would choose the high command of a new national army. It did not meet on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, a statement issued on Thursday by the UN Observer mission in DRC (known by its French acronym, MONUC) said that as of Tuesday there was no military presence in the town of Moliro, Katanga Province, southeastern DRC. MONUC added that it was closely monitoring movements in Moliro, and sending a team of observers there every other day.

This followed reports on 29 and 30 March that government troops were present in the town, despite a demand made on 19 March by the UN Security Council that all troops withdraw from it "immediately and without condition".