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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

Great Lakes: Summit in Pretoria to review Kigali-Kinshasa agreement

NAIROBI, 27 November 2003 (IRIN) - South African President Thabo Mbeki is scheduled to host a Great Lakes summit on Thursday, to review progress made in a 30 July 2002 agreement between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda, the South Africa government reported.

In a statement, the South African Department of Foreign Affairs said on Wednesday that presidents Joseph Kabila (DRC), Paul Kagame (Rwanda), Joaqim Chissano (Mozambique) and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda were expected to attend the summit in Pretoria. The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to the DRC, William Swing, was also expected to attend on behalf of the UN Third Party Verification Mechanism.

The verification mechanism was established after the signing of the DRC-Rwanda agreement, known as the Pretoria Agreement, on the withdrawal of Rwandan troops from the Congo and the dismantling of Interahamwe, Rwandan Hutu militia, and former Rwandan Armed Forces (ex-FAR) in the Congo.

Under the agreement, the UN Secretary-General and the South African government were assigned the responsibility of the Third Party. The verification body was established to act as the secretariat of the Third Party and mandated to monitor and verify the implementation of the agreement, the department reported.

The agreement also determined that the verification body would report on a regular basis to meetings of the principals comprising the two signatories, Kabila and Kagame, and the Third Party, comprising Mbeki and Annan or his representative.

The South African government said that Thursday's meeting would be the fourth of the principals, the others having taken place in on 1 November 2002 in Pretoria, in Paris on 25 February 2003 and in New York on 25 September 2003.

Themes: (IRIN) Conflict

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