DR Congo, Rwanda strike peace pact in Pretoria

Johannesburg, South Africa (PANA)

• A peace deal struck late Monday in Pretoria between Rwanda and DR Congo, awaits ratification by Presidents Paul Kagame of Rwanda and his Congolese counterpart, Joseph Kabila, South Africa deputy President Jacob Zuma said.
  Representatives of both countries struck the peace deal.

Although Zuma did not release details of the agreement, he said it was a feasible peace deal that would result in Rwanda withdrawing about 20,000 of its soldiers from the DR Congo.

War erupted in DR Congo in 1998 when rebels backed by Uganda and Rwanda invaded the vast Central African country to topple the government led by Laurent Kabila, who was assassinated last year and replaced by his son, Joseph.

Rwanda claims its presence in the DR Congo was only in pursuit of armed militias who had fled and sought refuge there. But it is widely believed that Rwanda backs the largest rebel army fighting in Congo.

It appears Rwanda received commitments from DR Congo that armed militias fighting Kagame's government would not be allowed to operate from there.

The Pretoria talks, which began last Thursday, appear to have solved the thorny issue of the withdrawal of foreign forces from the DR Congo, where Zimbabwe and Angola still have troops helping the government.

Zuma said the peace deal was a continuation of the Sun City Inter-Congolese Dialogue that failed to secure an all-inclusive solution for the troubled country though Kabila and Jean Pierre Bemba's rebel movement signed a peace deal outside the framework of the dialogue.

The move provoked an angry response from the Rally for Congolese Democracy that said it had unfairly been excluded from the deal. Fighting has since then intensified in the eastern parts of the country.

The Pretoria deal may, if ratified by Kabila and Kagame, reduce tension in that area and allow for possible economic recovery, observers said.

Recent media reports quoted the World Bank as saying that tough economic reform in DR Congo had produced results and the country could see much of its 12-billion-dollar debt erased by next year.

Despite a complex war that has drawn in several neighbouring countries and crippled the economy, Kabila has successfully implemented changes required by foreign donors, World Bank President James Wolfensohn said during a visit to Kinshasa last week.

"What the government has done here is extraordinary. They have created a base with a stable currency and budget," he added.