21 October 2003
Prendergast Sees Tangible Signs of Political Progress in DRC
Tells USIP "daunting security issues" remain in eastern sectors
By Jim Fisher-Thompson
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- Despite continued outbreaks of ethnic-fueled violence in the eastern area of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), political progress is being made toward ending a conflict that over the last five years has killed thousands of civilians, says John Prendergast, special adviser to the International Crisis Group (ICG), a non-governmental organization (NGO) dedicated to helping resolve conflicts worldwide.
A former director of African Affairs at the National Security Council (NSC) in the Clinton Administration, Prendergast was participating in a discussion on peace prospects in DRC and Burundi at the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) October 7, soon after returning from an ICG-sponsored fact-finding trip to eastern Congo.
Of his tour of the Bunia-Kivu-Goma area in eastern Congo in September, Prendergast said, "We heard some harrowing stories of continuing attacks, mutilations, mass rape, forced displacement" as well as innocent civilians being used "as human shields" by militias operating in the region.
At the same time, "we also saw some very substantial evidence of the beginning of a major [political] turnaround in the Congo," he said. "The National Unity Government has been formed now. Transitional institutions have been created and the government is beginning to extend itself into the east."
There, "the Ituri Interim Administration is beginning to build itself" and negotiations with other political and warring factions are "laying an important foundation for future peace," the Africa expert noted.
Prendergast said the United Nations peacekeeping force in DRC, called MONUC, has "more troops, the right mandate and some of the equipment necessary to help the country move forward." He added that Bill Swing, the retired U.S. diplomat and former Ambassador to DRC who now heads up, MONUC, sees the primary goal as moving all U.N. peacekeepers to the east "where they belong...(and they) may have actually accomplished that mission now.
"The Ituri Brigade is already making a difference in that area. But let's remember for a country the size of continental Europe there are a quarter the number of peacekeepers that there were in Kosovo."
While progress on the political front is being made, there are still "daunting security issues facing the National Unity Government today during its [democratic] transition," Prendergast told the USIP audience.
Chief among them is the challenge "to integrate all the military forces as called for in the [South Africa] agreement...and there may be 150,000 Congolese combatants...in addition to the external militias that are there," the former NSC official said.
In the east an agreement to begin integration into a national army that the Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD) and Mai-Mai militia group signed recently, brokered by MONUC and an NGO called Life and Peace Institute, "could be one of the most significant events in the east since the Rwandans formally withdrew from the Congo," he explained.
According to Prendergast, "This shows that things can be worked out locally if people are given the chance and the tools. It shows that the RCD and Mai-Mai commanders on the military side realize that they can work together."
This particular integration is essential to ending conflict in the east, Prendergast explained, because "in the effort to isolate the continuing spoiler role the Interhamwe will play and thus Rwanda's justification for being in there, the most effective way to address that will be for Congolese themselves to do so. And they cannot and will not do that unless the RCD and Mai-Mai are harmonized."
Another critical security issue Prendergast pointed to was the "racket" of arms supply to the various warring factions in the region. "Arms for minerals is the usual rationale for this pernicious practice, however, when the French moved into the Bunia,...arms deliveries were greatly reduced principally because of the overflights of Mirage [fighter] jets and the surveillance capacity they provide."
Francois Grignon, a Frenchman who is Central Africa project director for ICG, generally agreed with Prendergast's guardedly optimistic assessment of the political situation in DRC declaring, "Five months ago no one thought this could happen."
Grignon said he saw "significant momentum" toward peace and stability driven, in part, by "international pressure" on the "various [political] parties and players in the region. We certainly have a more proactive U.N. operation" now, he stressed.
The important thing is that the peace process has "a Congolese soul," the Africa expert told the USIP audience. Basically, "everyone is tired of suffering and there is, therefore, a willingness in many areas to move forward," now more than ever before.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
This page printed from: http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2003&m=October&x=20031021160114rehsiF0.2809717&t=usinfo/wf-latest.html
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