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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
DRC: RCD-Goma announces concessions on partition of military regions
KINSHASA, 4 August 2003 (IRIN) - The Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD-Goma) former rebel movement has said it is willing to make concessions regarding the partition of responsibilities for newly-created military regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
The announcement came on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the start of war in the Congo, when Rwandan and Ugandan backed rebels launched an offensive on the government of late DRC President Laurent-Desire Kabila.
RCD-Goma leader Azarias Ruberwa, one of four vice-presidents of the country's two-year transitional government, said on Friday during a news conference in the capital, Kinshasa, that his movement was ready to accept the two military regions it had been offered under a plan for a unified national military.
"We are offering the Commission [the follow-up committee of the inter-Congolese dialogue] and the Congolese people the chance for a positive solution," Ruberwa said. "We can accept two military regions if this is the only stumbling block on the path to peace."
RCD-Goma had previously refused the plan, claiming it would throw the balance of power in favour of the former government of DRC President Joseph Kabila, who replaced his father after he was assassinated in January 2001.
That plan, accepted by all parties but RCD-Goma, would allocate control of three military regions to the former Kinshasa government; two regions to RCD-Goma and the Mouvement de liberation du Congo (MLC), another major former rebel movement; and one region each to RCD-Kisangani/Mouvement de liberation (RCD-K/ML) and RCD-National (RCD-N), two smaller former rebel movements.
[See earlier IRIN story, "Confusion remains over partition of military regions"]
However, in return for its proposed concession, RCD-Goma demanded that its military officers be posted as deputies in other regions.
Ruberwa also called on the government to take rapid action to end hostilities in South Kivu Province of eastern DRC, where RCD-Goma has been fighting Mayi-Mayi militias allegedly supported by Burundian rebels of the Forces pour la defense de la democratie (FDD).
"Confrontations are still taking place this morning,” he said. “It is imperative that the government of national unity, of which we are a part, come together to stop this, because the Kivus are like the human heart of the Congo - if we do not care for it, the country will falter."
During the same news conference, Ruberwa also called on the transitional government to find a solution to persistent fighting in the Ituri District of northeastern DRC. On Friday, Kinshasa had sent three of its ministers on a mission of peace to the region, accompanied by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special representative to the DRC, William Swing.
"We have to come up with solutions for these armed groups, who are not signatories to national peace accords like the rest of the country," Ruberwa said. "If this means allocating them posts in the new government, then so be it."
One of the main militias of the Ituri region, the Union des patriotes congolais, is allied to RCD-Goma.
None of the ethnic-based militias fighting for control of resource-rich Ituri are signatories to the national power-sharing accord that led to the installation on 30 June of a new government led by Kabila with the assistance of four vice-presidents, one each from Kabila's former government, RCD-Goma, MLC and the unarmed political opposition and civil society.
Theme(s): (IRIN) Conflict
[ENDS]
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