Masire pessimistic for outcome of dialogue

With two only two days to go before the official end of the inter-Congolese dialogue on 19 April, the prospects of a consensus on a transitional government were looking distant on Tuesday night.

The facilitator of the dialogue, Ketumile Masire, emerged from an evening closed door session with the heads of the delegations to give a pessimistic assessment. "If they [the Congolese] have to argue like they've argued for weeks, then we can forget about coming to a final conclusion," he said.

Joseph Mudumbi, external relations director of rebel group Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD-Goma), said in Sun City on Wednesday that the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Mouvement pour la liberation du Congo (MLC) had arranged a bilateral deal which did not involve the other parties. The government and MLC had not submitted amendments to the plan for the transition period proposed by South African President Thabo Mbeki, he noted.

DRC Foreign Minister Leonard She Okitundu said the government was not in a hurry to submit amendments. By midday on Wednesday the government and the MLC had still not made public their considered responses to the second version of the Mbeki plan which was put forward on 11 April.

Mbeki's plan would give the portfolios of defence, security, finance, economy, internal affairs and the organisation of the country's first elections since 1960 to the RCD in a Council of State comprising the DRC president, Joseph Kabila, the RCD president, Adolphe Onusumba, the MLC president, Jean-Pierre Bemba, and a prime minister chosen from the unarmed opposition.

Kabila would remain president in a largely ceremonial role until national elections are held in 30 months' time, with the Council of State and a Cabinet of National Reconciliation appended to the presidency as executive powers.

Observers in Sun City said the RCD had asked to nominate the chief of staff of the new national army, but that this idea was unlikely to be acceptable to the government or the MLC.

Facilitation sources were hinting on Wednesday that the talks might continue beyond 19 April.