Rebels “very optimistic” about talks

The second vice president of the rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD) in Goma, Moise Nyarugabo, told IRIN he was “very optimistic” about this week’s peace talks. However, he said that for the talks to be successful, DRC President Laurent-Desire Kabila would have to refrain from coming up with “fanciful preconditions,” and the SADC mediators would have to take the RCD’s interests fully into account. The rebels had to be part of the process and it would no longer agree to “proximity talks,” Nyarugabo said. Meanwhile, Nyarugabo denied the existence of different factions within the rebel movement. He told IRIN that Kisangani was not a divided city, and there had been a “rapprochement” between the RCD and the rebel Mouvement de liberation congolais (MLC) of Jean-Pierre Bemba. “Bemba is close the RCD,” he said, adding that negotiations between the two groups were underway.