UN brokers Ituri ceasefire days ahead of DR Congo elections
The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and rebels in the violent province of Ituri have agreed to a UN-brokered ceasefire, allowing tens of thousands of people displaced by fighting to return home and vote in Sunday's landmark national elections.
"The two sides agreed to put an end to the armed conflict in Ituri and to create the conditions for a return to peace, reconciliation between all Congolese communities and consolidation of the electoral process," according to a copy of the agreement obtained by AFP on Thursday.
In another positive step, the Catholic Church performed a U-turn on Thursday and urged people to vote in the polls, the country's first multi-party ballot in 46 years. The endorsment from the National Episcopal Conference of the Congo (CENCO) came a day after it had refused to put its name to a pro-election declaration from all the other main religious movements in the DRC.
But in a sign of the country's continuing instability, gunmen shot dead the mother of a parliamentary candidate in the central province of Kasai-Oriental on Wednesday night.
The deal to end fighting in mineral-rich Ituri -- which has claimed more than 60,000 lives and displaced ten times as many since 1999 -- was signed on Wednesday evening by the Kinshasa government and the rebel Congolese Revolutionary Movement (MRC), all of whose members will receive an amnesty.
The MRC is made up of several thousand fighters from a variety of armed groups in Ituri and is the only structured militia still active in the region. It recently launched a series of attacks on DRC army positions.
Under the deal the two parties "agreed to do everything to allow the (presidential and general) elections of July 30 to take place in conditions of maximum security".
They undertook "to facilitate the free movement of displaced persons so they can go to their electoral districts to vote freely and then return to their places of residence".
The agreement was signed by a military advisor from President Joseph Kabila's office, a senior MRC officer and an "observer" from the United Nations mission in DRC (MONUC).
UN peacekeepers have been deployed since 1999 in Ituri but the presence of the MRC has thus far prevented the return of the 200,000 people displaced within Ituri itself, after fleeing their homes because of attacks and looting.
Ituri and other eastern provinces of the DRC have continued to be ravaged by army-rebel clashes and ethnic violence, despite the end in 1998 of a five-year war that engulfed the DRC and drew in armies from at least six neighbouring states.
In May rebels in Ituri kidnapped seven Nepalese UN peacekeepers.
Despite the breakthrough, a MONUC demobilisation expert said it was doubtful how long the ceasefire would last, given the chronic instability in the vast central African country.
"It is totally possible that the militias will play along for the elections. But we have no guarantee concerning the end of the conflict and the disarmament of all these people," he said.
AFP
