Author	Jos Havermans
Publication	Searching for Peace in Africa
Year	2000

Summary

After the Tutsi-led Rwandan rebel movement, RPF, conquered Kigali in July 1994, some 1.2 million Hutu refugees fled across the border into what was then Zaire. The exodus included members of the defeated Rwandan army and militias that had perpetrated the mass killing of up to 800,000 Rwandans. The massive relocation of people exported the Rwandan ethnic and political conflict into Zaire. The presence of armed Rwandan Hutus in Zaire, exacerbated tensions between Hutus and Tutsis who had been living for many years in the province of Nord-Kivu and between the local Zairean population and the Banyamulenge Tutsis in South-Kivu.
The imported Rwandan conflict intermingled with a domestic conflict that was already simmering in Zaire. In the eastern Zairean Kivu provinces, which border on Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda, ethnic clashes had erupted in the early 1990s between - on one side - the so called Banyamulenge, a community of people of Rwanda Tutsi origin, and - on the other side - local communities of other ethnic origins, mostly Hunde. In 1993, several hundreds of people are believed to have been killed in such clashes in the Masisi region in North-Kivu. The clashes were reportedly connected to a struggle for control over land and other economic resources in the region. Regional strongmen are alleged to have deliberately fanned the ethnic hatred to chase away rivals. The dynamics of this domestic conflict and the confrontation imported from Rwanda had an escalating effect.
The war in Zaire further intensified in the early autumn of 1996, when Zairean Tutsi militia. - formed in response to plans of the government in Kinshasa to take away their Zairean citizenship - gained momentum and were joined by dissidents intent on deposing the regime of Mobutu Sese Seko in Kinshasa. This development added another dimension to the conflict and crisis in the country. The conflict in the east developed into a national rebellion aimed at the overthrow of the central government. The whole country now became involved, with the entire population having a stake in the conflict.
As mentioned above, the ethnic boiling pot in the east exploded again in 1996. In October of that year, Tutsi-led militias supported by the Rwandan army attacked Hutu refugee camps. This resulted in massive refugee movements in two directions: hundreds of thousands of Rwandans returned to their home country, and hundred of thousands of other refugees, among them the armed Hutu insurgents, marched west, deeper into Zaire, some of them as far as the Central African Republic and Congo Brazzaville. The latter group was chased by the militias, by then fighting under the banner of the rebel movement of Laurent Kabila, the Alliance des Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Congo-Zaïre (AFDL). In this dramatic stage of the conflict, another episode of mass killings took place, out of sight of the international community, with the Hutu refugees and alleged militia members as victims and the AFDL rebels as alleged perpetrators.
The AFDL campaign, which was reportedly supported by Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi and Angola, proved successful. The rebels conquered city after city in their march on the capital and on May 17, 1997 the AFDL troops took over Kinshasa, shortly after Mobutu had fled the country.
Kabila renamed Zaïre the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). After the fall of the Mobutu regime a new situation emerged, raising hopes among the Congolese and the international community that a democratic and well functioning government would be installed. Instead, Kabila clamped down on political rights, banned all political activities, except for those of the AFDL, and failed to install efficient administrative institutions in the provincial capitals. The pro-democratic domestic opposition, centred around the UDPS party of Etienne Tshisekedi, a convinced proponent of non-violent political reform, found it particularly hard to accept that a movement that took power by force should gain international recognition and the benefit of the doubt from such powerful democracies as the US and many European countries.
After he had been in office for only a few months, Kabila's relations with the governments of Rwanda and Uganda began to turn sour as Kigali and Kampala concluded that Kabila was unable to pacify rebel movements based in eastern DRC. In August 1998, a new rebellion started in eastern DRC. This time, the conflict developed into a major international war. Kabila gained support from Zimbabwe, Angola, and Chad, who sent troops to support the DRC national army, as well as from Sudan and Namibia. The rebels were openly supported by Rwanda and Uganda. This second Congolese war, in which eight countries were involved, continued despite several diplomatic attempts by African powers to arrange a cease-fire.

Conflict Dynamics

By the fall of 2000, the situation in the DRC was one of military stalemate, with little progress being made by either party on the battle field, although the government forces seemed to have taken the initiative after gaining some ground on both the northern and eastern fronts. Continued eruptions of fighting have led to new massive streams of refugee in the summer and fall of 2000, mostly domestically and toward neighbouring Congo Brazzaville and the Central African Republic. A series of political initiatives has been undertaken to stop the war.
The war in the Democratic Republic of Congo is now dominated by four military forces - Kabila's national army (Forces Armée Congolais, or FAC), and three rebel movements - all of which are supported by foreign regional powers. The Movement for the Liberation of Congo (Mouvement de Libération Congolais, or MLC) of Jean-Pierre Bemba, which is supported by Uganda, has its headquarters in Gbadolite, the former stronghold and palace of Mobutu close to the border with the Central African Republic. The Rassemblement Congolaise pour la Démocratie (RCD) was split in two factions in the course of 1999; the RCD-Goma, supported by Rwanda, and the RCD-ML, which is led by Wamba dia Wamba and operates under the umbrella of Uganda. The split within the RCD rebel movement was said to reflect tension between non-Tutsi Congolese members of the RCD and the Banyamulenge-Tutsi. Burundi reportedly also supports the RCD-Gomba, along with Rwanda.
In July 2000, Ugandan and Rwandan forces clashed in the Congolese town of Kisangani, making the DRC the battle ground for their mutual controversies and causing dozens of deaths among the civilian Congolese population. Kabila's forces continued to enjoy the support of two of the total of at least five foreign powers that intervened in the DRC militarily, Zimbabwe and Angola. Namibia also bolsters Kabila regime. Chad, which initially deployed troops in the DRC to support Kabila, withdrew its forces in 1999 and seemed to abstain from any further military intervention. Diplomats in Kinshasa and Harare indicated in the fall of 2000 that Zimbabwe's engagement, which was of critical importance to Kabila's military position, might be unsustainable due to its high burden on a feeble Zimbabwean economy and an increasingly powerful domestic opposition objecting against Zimbabwe's foreign intervention.
Most foreign powers, especially Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi and Angola, legitimised their engagement by stating the need to protect themselves against rebel attacks from DRC territory. The foreign powers were also said to be seeking access to the mineral riches of the DRC and, especially in the case of Zimbabwe, to gain lucrative business contracts from the government in Kinshasa. The national army uses Russian and Ukrainian air craft, in most cases provided by Angola. Ballistic missiles that are said to be stationed on barges in the Congo river under government control were reportedly of North Korean origin.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni appeared to distance himself from the rebel movements in April 1999 when he joined Kabila for talks on a cease-fire in the Libyan town of Sirte. Kabila said he and his Ugandan rival had signed a peace agreement in the absence of rebel representatives. Museveni's move seemed to indicate a souring of relations between Uganda and Rwanda and was reportedly motivated by pressure from international donors on Kampala to stop Ugandan involvement in conflicts abroad.
The Libyan agreement turned out to be one of the foundations for the accords signed in the summer of 1999, during talks presided over by Zambian president Chiluba in the Zambian capital of Lusaka. Participants in these negotiations - senior representatives of eight countries engaged in the war - finally agreed to a cease-fire agreement. The Lusaka accords, as the agreement was dubbed, also included a preamble on setting up a national dialogue between all domestic Congolese political factions on democratisation of the DRC.
Kabila is continuing to put considerable effort into strengthening his ties with the foreign powers he relies on for the survival of his regime. In April 1999 he signed a collective defence pact with the presidents of Angola, Namibia, and Zimbabwe, in Luanda, committing the signatories to a joint response if any one of their countries is attacked. The DRC president sought to strengthen his position domestically by dissolving his AFDL party, which he accused of corruption and opportunism, and installing so called Comités du Pouvoir Populaire (CPP), a manoeuvre that seemed to be inspired by a similar Libyan political infrastructure. Repression of political opponents was intensifying. In the summer of 1999 Kabila signed the Lusaka peace accords, which entailed a cease-fire and opening a national debate on reconciliation and democratisation.
The current humanitarian situation in the DRC is gradually deteriorating from bad to worse. Continued fighting urged tens of thousands Congolese to flee. 'Both the soldiers of Kabila as the rebels tend to suspect us of being supportive of their enemy', a refugee who had abandoned the northern region described the difficult position of the civilian population in a dispatch published by the European Network for Congo (REC). The economy is in shatters. Electricity production has diminished dramatically, both in rebel held territory as in region under government control. Transport has almost come to a standstill, leaving manufacturers with lack of raw materials. Unilever suspended production at its Marsavco factory, producer of soap and other cosmetics. Kabila's decision to grant a monopoly in the diamond trade to an Israeli company ended the modest flow of foreign currency into the hands of small local dealers in the Kasai region, damaging the local economy there further. In large parts of the country, farm land is left unattended after the local population fled there homes because of looting and fighting. The World Food Program in October 2000 reported that millions of Congolese face malnutrition or death from starvation. The country's main human rights organisation, African Association for the Defense of Human Rights in Congo/Kinshasa (ASADHO), described the human rights situation as 'deplorable'. It said that both the rebels and Kabila's regime were responsible for this situation. The UN special rapporteur for the DRC said a 'climate of hatred' persisted in the DRC, where most victims of the war were civilians. Human Rights Watch reported that ethnic clashes in rebel held territory between hema and lendu were resurging, apparently mirroring similar rivalries within the Uganda supported RCD-ML.
The United Nations mission in the DRC, MONUC, established after the signing of the Lusaka agreements, seemed powerless confronted with military factions that seemed determined to continue to fight. Plans to deploy a UN force of about 5,000 troops from African countries, including Senegal, Tunisia, Nigeria and South Africa, were blocked because of the violations of the Lusaka cease-fire, which should have been effective as of September 1, 1999. After the signing of the Lusaka accords, Ketumile Masire, former president of Botswana, was appointed to official facilitator of the national debate by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). In the late summer of 2000, the government Kinshasa no longer accepted Masire in this position and called for him to be succeeded. A so called Mixed Military Commission (CMM), consisting of military officials of several of the belligerent parties, was established with the task to monitor the cease fire. Implementation of the Lusaka accords seemed to be further hindered when Kabila, in August 2000, installed a new parliament, the Constituent and Legislative Assembly- Transitionally Parliament, in Lubumbashi, thereby trespassing plans to move towards new democratic institutions via a national debate. Its 300 members were selected and nominated by a government commission and the president. Many politicians of the Congolese opposition and most western countries denounced the move as undemocratic and not in line with the Lusaka accords.

Official Conflict Management

In 1993, ethnic clashes erupted in the North-Kivu province which can be seen as a prelude to the current conflict. Those clashes, if noted at all internationally, did not give rise to any significant peacemaking initiatives on the part of the United Nations or the OAU. It was the refugee crisis resulting from the Rwandan genocide in 1994 which led to a massive involvement of the United Nations and major foreign powers, a group of actors often dubbed 'the international community'. UNHCR and OCHA (formerly DHA) implemented and co-ordinated relief operations. Calls by analysts and some NGOs to separate armed militia members from other refugees in the refugee camps in order to prevent militias using international aid to prepare for war, were rebuffed by the Security Council and individual countries showing lack of political will to intervene.
The United Nations tried to broker negotiations between the warring parties in 1997 and 1998, mostly through its special envoy in the region, Mohamed Sahnoun, but without success. UN secretary-general Kofi Annan helped broker a cease-fire agreement in Paris in December 1998, but this agreement failed to stop the fighting. A UN team sent to the DRC to investigate reports of massacres by forces fighting with Kabila's AFDL had to abandon its efforts in 1998 as a result of obstruction by the Kabila regime. The UN's role became significant after the signing of the Lusaka accords in July 1999. The agreements included a peace keeping assignment for UN observers and bleu helmets after the cease-fire would be implemented. The plans included the deployment of 500 observers and 5,000 UN soldiers. However, the deployment of the UN force has been suspended because of continued fighting. Only the deployment of the UN mission that would prepare for the deployment of peacekeepers, NUMOC, had materialised, although its members were restrained in Kinshasa and other major cities as fighting prevented them from visiting local outposts.
In April 1999, Kofi Annan appointed the former Senegalese foreign minister Moustapha Niasse as his special envoy for the DRC peace process. Niasse was assigned the task of establishing contacts with DRC political and civic leaders and sounding out a possible UN role in promoting ongoing talks between countries involved in the conflict in Lusaka on reaching a cease-fire in the war. The UN's efforts were sustained by a Security Council resolution adopted in early 1999, calling for peace talks, free elections and ending the presence of foreign troops in the DRC.
After the refugee crisis became apparent in 1994, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) dispatched a number of fact finding missions to the DRC but appeared to be unable or unwilling to take a decisive role in the crisis. In 1998, after the second rebellion in the east had erupted, the diplomatic efforts to stop the war were being run through regional organisations. Western countries were standing back, leaving the diplomacy work to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the OAU. The SADC/OAU initiatives were chaired by Zambian president Frederick Chiluba. Nelson Mandela, as president of the major power in the SADC-region, also took an active interest in the crisis, as well as the Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi.
Efforts by president Chiluba to hold a summit in Lusaka in early December 1998 to discuss details of a cease-fire were frustrated by Kabila's refusal to meet representatives of the rebel movement RCD. But military and diplomatic officials of the countries involved in the DRC war gathered in Lusaka in April 1999 for preliminary talks on a cease-fire and a month later in South-Africa. Delegations from the rebel movement RCD at this stage did not officially join the talks, which were dubbed 'the Chiluba process', but were intensively consulted. In July 1999, after a new round of talks in Lusaka, the Kabila government, rebel groups and the governments of the neighbouring countries involved in the conflict reached an agreement on a cease-fire. Initially, two of the three rebel groups refused to sign the document due to disagreement on who were the real representatives of the rebel forces fighting Kabila, but in late August they all put their signatories under the agreement. The agreement on a cease-fire was considered to be an important, but certainly not final step towards peace in the region. The accord, which included the disarmament of Hutu militias in eastern Congo and opening a national dialogue between all political factions within the DRC, was still not abided by in the fall of 2000.
At the Franco-African summit in Paris in December 1998, French president Jacques Chirac and UN secretary general Kofi Annan brokered a cease-fire, which did not materialise. In January 1999, Rwanda, Uganda, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Angola agreed on a cease-fire at a meeting in Windhoek, but, with the rebels of the RCD left out, it did not stop the fighting. France and other European nations offered grants, through the OAU, for the national debate.
The European Union sought to sustain peace efforts through its special envoy for the Great Lakes region, Aldo Ajello, who continued his peace efforts through travel diplomacy in the region in 1999 and since then has been working towards implementation of the Lusaka accords.
In early 1999, the Libyan leader colonel Gaddafi set himself up as mediator and allegedly brokered a cease-fire accord signed by Kabila and Museveni. The talks in the Libyan town of Sirte were shrouded in mystery but were also said to be attended by the presidents of Chad and Eritrea. The Congolese rebel movement did not participate in the Libyan talks.
The Sirte agreement may, however, have contributed to boosting the peace process led by SADC as the accord signed in Libya was referred to as one of the buildings stones of peace during talks in Zambia leading to the Lusaka accords.
Domestically, a peace initiative was taken in the summer of 1998 by opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi, who stressed his neutrality during the second rebel campaign of 1998/99. However, Kabila's government stopped him from travelling to Brussels to propagate his plan.
In the spring of 1999, Kabila proposed holding a national debate on the future of the country. Opposition leader Tshisekedi supported the plan and called for participation of the UN, OAU, EU and SADC, as well as the rebel movement RCD. Kabila reportedly contacted the Italian organisation Sant' Egidio to ask for assistance in organising a first stage of dialogue between the government and domestic opposition groups. In the course of 2000, the Kabila government still claimed it was committed to the Lusaka accords, including holding a national debate, but little was done. The SADC summoned an emergency summit in Lusaka in August 2000 aimed at reviving the Lusaka accords. The meeting was not successful.

Multi Track Diplomacy

Domestic
Local civil society in the Democratic Republic of Congo is strong when it comes to economic survival strategies and meeting basic needs such as food and housing, but bears little weight in the fields of social, political and human rights activities.
During the last decade of the Mobutu regime, numerous local non-governmental groups were established by people who got together to improve their small-scale economic activities, such as small soap factories, bakeries, poultry farms and vegetable gardens. This practice has not changed under Kabila. The number of non-governmental organisations that focus on promoting democracy, social justice, human rights and reconciliation, however, is small. Civil society in many instances fell prey to ethnic and regional animosities inculcated by political elites. A low point was reached in early 1999 when the leader of the national umbrella organisations of all NGOs in the DRC (CNONGD), Badouin Hamuli Kabarhuza, was arrested and held for a few days by Kabila's secret police under charges of collaborating with the rebels in eastern DRC. In rebel held territory, a number of local representatives of civil society were arrested. Being 'an activist for civil society' was explicitly mentioned as a charge against four people who were deported to the city of Kisangani from their home province of Sud-Kivu by the RCD-Goma rebel movement in August 2000.
It should be pointed out here that it would be an oversimplification to present the non-governmental civil society as being completely separated from and in opposition to the world of Congolese officialdom. There are in many instances close ties between the acts and interests of Congolese politicians and members of non-governmental organisations. Civil society cannot be regarded as wholly divorced from the problems in the DRC.
In terms of peace building and conflict prevention, a key role was played by the Conseil Régional des Organisations Non-Gouvernemental de Développement/Nord Kivu (CRONGD/Nord Kivu) in the early 1990s. This umbrella organisation managed to bring together more than thirty small NGOs that were organised along ethnic lines to work for peace and reconciliation. CRONGD/Nord Kivu organised what was called a Campaign for Peace in North-Kivu. Churches and some unions joined the initiative and about sixty small regional NGOs eventually supported the campaign. Its main goal was to set up a dialogue between the ethnic communities in the region. In addition, the campaign aimed at establishing contact between the Kivu, the civil society as a whole and the government in Kinshasa. The latter initiative led, among other things, to a peace conference in the town of Mweso in 1993 between CRONGD representatives and the government, resulting in an agreement on the disarmament of militias and the government's promise to withdraw its troops to barracks. The agreement did not materialise. The activities in the region continued and in 1996, the Campaign for Peace in North-Kivu launched a publicity campaign calling on communities to ignore manipulative efforts to arouse ethnic hatred and violence.
The national NGO umbrella organisation, the CNONGD, supported local initiatives and in June 1997 organised a Civil Society Meeting on the Reconstruction and Democratisation of the Democratic Republic of Congo in Kinshasa. At the meeting, which was supported by Synergies Africa and the International Human Rights Law Group, more than two hundred representatives called on Kabila to engage in a continued dialogue with members of civil society.
With the outbreak of the rebel war in 1997, most initiatives of local NGOs in the Kivu and other regions in eastern Zaïre were suspended. Many NGO offices were looted, and continued to be looted if they managed to recover, by army soldiers or militias and deprived of scarce resources such as faxes and computers. Many NGOs lost contact with the foreign partners who funded them. The working conditions for NGOs deteriorated even further following the second rebel campaign which began in 1998.
In early 1999 the CNONGD launched another campaign for peace in the DRC. Leaders of DRC civil society toured western countries, including Canada and Belgium, to gain international support for their initiative. The aims of the campaign included a cease-fire, the deployment of a peacekeeping force, an inclusive roundtable process with international guarantees, and establishing democratic institutions. This intervention by civil society is said to have contributed to president Kabila's announcement in April 1999 that he intended to organise a national debate between government, opposition and civil society to seek a peaceful solution to the crisis. Although this debate had not started by mid-1999, Kabila's move implied that his position could be influenced by the interventions of civil society. In the fall of 2000, a group of NGOs continued what they called a National Campaign for lasting Peace by speaking out in favour of peace, the departure of foreign troops from the country and the establishment of democratic institutions.
With the collapse of state services and infrastructure during the last years of the Mobutu regime, the Roman Catholic Church and other churches in the DRC played a crucial role by providing the only remaining infrastructure which allowed civil society to organise itself and communicate. The churches' radio service enabled local NGOs to be aware of developments in other regions and the capital as well as to maintain relations with the outside world. The Roman Catholic Church helped raise awareness about political and civic rights, through dispersal of leaflets in anticipation of national elections scheduled for June 1997. (The elections were cancelled after the Kabila take-over in May 1997). Many priests played a key role in local NGO activities. An example of such an NGO is the Groupe Jérémie, led by a Congolese Jesuit priest. This organisation is engaged in efforts to boost respect for human rights.
Church activities amounted to capacity- and civil society- building as well as consensus-building and did not touch on diplomacy or upper level negotiations, although members of the upper hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church were involved in the democratisation process on a national level in the mid-1990s. The NGO and church activities could be described as efforts to promote long term, structural prevention. Almost all local domestic activities to sustain peace and promote reconciliation had to be abandoned during the two rebel wars of 1996/97 and 1998/99. In 2000, the so called Commissions Justice et Paix, closely related to the roman catholic church, convened meetings in Kinshasa attended by local commissions from almost all Congolese dioceses, including those in rebel held territory, to discuss their role in a peace process. The meetings also provided information on the justice system, how to behave when confronted with aggressive military officials and strategies of non-violent action.
Human rights organisation ASADHO, based in Kinshasa, has been one of the few NGOs that has continued to operate through the several phases of political and military turmoil. It has become a focal point for, and to some extent a mouthpiece of, other Congolese NGOs and players in civil society. In its zest to boost human rights in the DRC, ASADHO does not abstain from making statements and recommendations on political developments and calls for negotiations and the establishment of a democratic government. In August 2000, the national Forum of Human Right Organisations (ONGDH) at a meeting in Kinshasa called for opening a national dialogue and urged the Security Council to put pressure on the government by using its right to implement sanctions as is put down in Chapter VII of the UN Charter.

International
A considerable number of international NGOs have addressed the crisis in the DRC. Most organisations approach the conflict in the DRC as part of the complex crisis of the entire Great Lakes Region. As many initiatives of international NGOs, such as the involvement of the Italian catholic organisation Sant'Egidio, are closely intertwined with official diplomatic actions, it is hard to distinguish between pure non-governmental contributions and the peace process as such.
A group of European NGOs, including Oxfam (UK), Novib (Netherlands) and NCOS (Belgium), supported local NGOs that work for peace in eastern DRC and elsewhere in the country. These western NGOs exchange information on their individual programmes through the Reseau Européen pour le Congo/ex-Zaïre (REC). Efforts have been seriously hindered because of the ongoing civil war.
The Carter Center took action in 1995 to get a mediation process going on the regional African level. Jimmy Carter brokered two summits attended by former Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere, former Mali president Amadou Touré and South African archbishop Desmond Tutu, prominent Africans with a high profile as mediators. (See also Official Conflict Management in this survey).
The International Crisis Group (ICG) has been working to organise a major advocacy effort aimed at developing a regional crisis prevention plan for Central Africa.
In April 1998, The Forum on Early Warning and Early Response (FEWER) established an Early Warning Network for the Great Lakes Region, consisting of representatives of local organisations in Rwanda, Uganda, DRC, Burundi, Kenya and Tanzania. FEWER has continued to support this Network, which is supervised by the Africa Peace Forum and produces situation analyses on a regular basis. It also organises meetings to review the conflict situation in the region.
Synergies Africa and the International Human Rights Law Group helped the CNONGD to organise a meeting of civil society representatives in June 1997 to promote constructive dialogue between civil society leaders and the national government on reconstruction of the country.
Some analysts have criticised international institutions for lack of support to and understanding of the domestic DRC opposition, while being biased towards Uganda and Rwanda. The Italian Roman Catholic organisation Sant'Egidio managed to persuade the DRC government to take part in peace talks scheduled to be held in Rome in early May 1999. The talks were postponed and later cancelled, as the SADC peace process started to develop into a forum which could bring rebels, the Kabila government and foreign powers together around the negotiating table.
Sant'Egidio remained active, however, and in June 1999 it announced through a representative in Kinshasa that it was working to set up an all-inclusive committee to organise the proposed inter-Congolese national debate between government and opposition.

Conclusion
As all-out war was raging, brokering a cease-fire and negotiating a political solution at the top military and political level was an obvious first priority to get closer to peace and stability in late 1998. It appeared that local NGO contributions to peace building would only become feasible in the post-conflict rehabilitation and reconstruction phase. Local reconciliatory activities at civil society level, which had not been able to prevent escalation of the conflict, came to a halt during the fighting. Many local NGOs are under pressure from the parties in the conflict to choose sides, making it hazardous for international NGOs to decide whether or not to support these organisations. However, analysts and experts working for international NGOs think that the weakened local NGO-structures can be used as a basis for further development as soon as the country stabilises.

Prospects

The signing of a cease-fire agreement in the summer of 1999, constituted a real prospect for bringing an end to the violent conflict in Congo DR. The agreement included the establishment of a joint military commission made up of African countries to monitor the implementation of the agreement and disarmament of the Interahamwe militia, another major goal included in the accord. The agreement also included the deployment of a UN peacekeeping force in the DRC and opening a national debate among all domestic factions and civil society on the future of the DRC. In the fall of 2000, the Lusaka accords were still unabided by. The national debate, apart from some faltering efforts to get it going, was still basically non-existent. However, both civil domestic and international diplomatic efforts still worked towards implementing the Lusaka accords. In that sense, the accords were still alive. They functioned as a continuous focal point as well as a source of hope, behind efforts toe stabilise the country and create peace.
The democratic opposition of the DRC, which for years tried to depose Mobutu's regime through non-violent means, was still in a tight corner as Kabila's government was still hindering its activities. The democratic opposition's political agenda contains elements that to some extent are in line with the Kabila administrations' ambitions, creating ground for potential future deals or dialogue. Other elements of its agenda seem to go against Kabila's policy. Most opposition groups and non governmental organisation favour the expulsion from the DRC of all foreign powers in order to safeguard the survival of the DRC as a national sovereign state. This goal at least partly coincides with Kabila's wish to chase away Ugandan, Rwandan and Burundi forces holding ground on DRC territory. On the long term, Kabila is understood to also take into account the repatriation of Zimbabwean and Angolan forces, in order to rule his country independently, no longer having to rely on foreign military assistance.
The opposition's goal to revive a process towards creating democratic institutions and power sharing, the beginnings of which date back to the declining years of the Mobutu regime when a National Convention started, seems to be at odds with Kabila's tendency to block any form of political opposition. The Kabila government has reportedly been engaged in a continuous series of counteractions against opposition politicians, human rights activists, journalists and other influential representatives of civil society, a practice it seems to legitimatise by referring to the state of war the country is still experiencing. One of the most concrete steps to establish peace domestically still seemed to be found in moves towards setting up a dialogue between the government and several opposition parties. Efforts of this kind could still find encouragement in the floating Lusaka agreements. Foreign organisations, including Sant'Egidio, seemed to continue to be willing to facilitate or bolster such a process.

Recommendations

Stopping the war, obviously the first priority in the DRC, requires first- and other track diplomacy aimed at convincing the Kabila government, the rebel movements and the relevant foreign powers to stop fighting and implement the agreement reached in Lusaka in July 1999. As long as the fighting continues, supporting peace-building initiatives on the local level remains extremely difficult. However, both local and international NGOs working for peace and reconciliation call for support in order to develop plans to boost national and regional reconciliation and the strengthening of civil society. The Africa Peace Forum recommends two courses of action

• Local civil society organisations should be supported. Over 400 local NGOs have been effective in promoting peace and reconciliation at the local level in the eastern DRC. They need financial, material and moral support to continue.
• Regional mediation efforts of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) should be supported. SADC has regional convening powers. This 'African Solutions for African Problems' approach should be encouraged and extended to long term economic and social co-operation.

Service Information

PERIODICALS AND NEWSLETTERS:	Le Soft - Congolese daily, fairly reliable and independent information. Available at some universities' departments for African studies and on the internet (http://www.lesoftonline.net); Periodique Des Droits de l'Homme - Periodical of human rights organisation ASADHO;
REPORTS:	Amnesty International: Annual Report 2000, entry Congo (Democratic Republic of), 2000; Congo (Democratic Republic of) - A Year of Dashed Hopes, 1998; Human Rights Watch: World Report 20009, Entry DRC, 2000; Eastern Congo Ravaged: Killing Civilians and Silencing Protest. May 2000 40pp.; Africa Peace Forum/FEWER available on: http://www.fewer.org/pubs/main.htm#1, Conflict and Peace Indicators Great Lakes, October 2000; After Lusaka: Civil Society Perspectives on Consolidating Peace. September 1999; Background Report Great Lakes Early Warning Project, August/September 1998; International Crisis Group, available on: http://www.intl-crisis-group.org/projects/cafrica/reports.htm, Kinshasa Sous Kabila a la Veille du Dialogue National, September 1999; The Agreement on a Cease-Fire in the Democratic Republic of Congo, August 1999; Congo at War: A Briefing On the Internal and External players in the Central African Conflict, November 1998;
OTHER PUBLICATIONS:	War and Peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Herbert Weiss, Current African Isuues No. 22, 2000; Zaïre, la Transition Manquée 1990-1997, Gauthiers de Villers (ed.). Cahiers Africains no 27-28-29, L'Harmattan, Paris, 1997; La Françafrique, François-Xavier Verschave (ed.). Stock, Paris, 1998, (role of French Africa policy on current events in region);
SELECTED INTERNETSITES:	http://www.congonline.com/ Congonline - The most complete website on the Democratic Republic of Congo. Based in Belgium, it offers recent and complete news on the situation in the DRC, suggests many links, provides reports related to the situation, etc. However, Congonline is more than a news agency, it also presents a wide variety of information on subjects such as geography, history, sports, weather forecast, cooking, etc. on DRC. Payed subscription required.; http:/www.congonline.com/Asadho/index.html (Site of the human rights organisation Asadho containing extended news report and documents on situation in the DRC); http://perso.wanadoo.fr\dan.cdm\dem\mondinfo.htm - Webpage containing regularly updated news reports from the DRC collected by the Reseau Européen pour le Congo (REC); http://www.jps.net/rdcongof (information on current affairs in DRC provided by DRC Lumumbist political party); http://www.udps.org (information on position of party of opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi); http://www.congorcd.org (site of the rebel movement RCD-ML); http://www.usip.org/library/regions/drc.html DRC Web Links by USIP; http://www.synapse.net/~acdi20/country/greatla1.htm (information on Central African conflict); http://www.accord.org.za/accnet/index.htm (webpages of South African organisation Accord offering regular updates on conflict in the DRC); http://www.crisisweb.org/projects/cafrica/Default.htm (projects run by International Crisis Group); http://www.fewer.org/greatlakes/index.htm (information provided by Fewer and Africa Peace Forum); http://www.international-alert.org (extended information on Great Lakes Region); http://www.heritiers.org (site of Héritiers de la Justice, organisation of the protestant churches, about human rights and peace efforts)
RESOURCE CONTACTS:	J. A. Odera - author of an early warning report on the situation in the DRC in August 1998, published under the auspices of the Africa Peace Forum and FEWER. Email: kilenem@africaonline.co.ke; Guillaume Ngefa Atondoko - President of l'Association Africaine de Défense des Droits de l'Homme, ASADHO; Hamuli Kabarhuza - Executive director of CNONGD; Stefaan Marysse - scholar and Africa expert at the Centre for Development Studies at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. Email stefaan.marysse@ufsia.ac.be; Filip Reyntjens - professor at Centre for Development Studies at Antwerp University, Belgium, author of several publications on the Great Lakes area. Email freyntje@ruca.ua.ac.be; Eric Kennes - scholar at Centre for Development Studies at Antwerp University, Belgium.; Jules Devos - Coordinator of Réseau Européen Congo (REC), located at NCOS, Brussels, Belgium.
ORGANISATIONS:	Group Jérémie, Coordinator Rigobert Minani, Bukavu, av. Kibondo, 12-Bukavu, BP. 1612 Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo, (BP. 3 Cyanggupu, Rwanda), Kinshasa, A. Kisangani, Batiment Sofide - 2e niveau, Tel. +243 12 33 374, Fax. +243 12 34 441, Email: rigomin@ic.cd; Action pour la Justice, Paix et Reconciliation;Mr. Felo Kambundi Gabriel, executive director, BP. 81 Kikwit, Democratic Republic of Congo, Tel. +243 12 34 481; Reseau Européen pour le Congo/ex-Zaïre (REC) - Brussels-based DRC civil society group run by European NGOs, c/o NCOS, Vlasfabriekstraat 11, 1060 Bruxelles, Belgium, Tel. +32 2 5392620, Fax +32 2 5391343, Email jules.devos@ncos.ngonet.be; Data on the following organisations can be found in the Directory section: CNONGD; ASADHO; The Carter Center; International Crisis Group; Forum on Early Warning and Early Response (FEWER); Synergies Africa; Sant'Egidio; Africa Peace Forum; Héritiers de la Justice

About the author

Jos Havermans is an historian and freelance journalist covering international developments for several Dutch and international magazines. He has written extensively on Sub-Saharan Africa. In recent years his coverage of Africa has included reports on peace efforts and conflict prevention in Burundi, the decay of the central government in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the democratisation process in Malawi.