adminKampala — Presidents from Africa’s Great Lakes region gathered yesterday in Uganda for a fresh bid to broker a deal to end fighting in resource-rich eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.The meeting of the 11-member International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) — the seventh such summit held to try to find a lasting solution — comes amid a recent upsurge in violence.
Congolese troops, backed by a special United Nations force, launched a fresh assault against the M23 army mutineers in the turbulent North-Kivu province late last month. Conflict in the fertile and valuable mining region has in the past dragged regional powers into the fighting, with both Rwanda and Uganda accused of backing the M23, claims they flatly deny.
Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni and Tanzania’s Jakaya Kikwete arrived early at the talks, held at a luxury lakeside resort outside Kampala, Ugandan foreign ministry spokesperson Elly Kamahungye said.
Tanzanian troops are a key part of the newly deployed UN force specially mandated to attack rebel units, and relations with neighbouring Rwanda have been tense in recent months.
DRC leader Joseph Kabila is also expected, but Congolese delegation official Juvenal Kabongo said it was not yet decided if he would meet with Rwanda’s Kagame on the sidelines of the talks. The UN special envoy Mary Robinson and African Union Commission chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma are also due to attend to push leaders to revive stalled peace efforts.
The M23 was launched by Tutsi soldiers who mutinied from Congo’s army in April 2012 and turned their guns on their former comrades.
Last week the rebels moved back from positions around Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, which they seized for 12 days last November before pulling out under international pressure. — AFP
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