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http://www.africanews.org/central/congo-kinshasa/stories/19990312_feat1.html
Rebels Want 'Round Table'
March 12, 1999
By Stephen Laufer
Johannesburg - Opposition parties from the Democratic Republic of Congo meeting
outside Pretoria have called for a "round table" to determine a new constitution
and establish how long the transition to democracy will take.=
The delegates, including representatives of the rebels fighting to overthrow the government of President Laurent Kabila as well as unarmed political groups, said the round table should include all political and social forces in the Congo.
The round table - a concept which gained popularity during eastern Europe's
transition to democracy in the early 1990s - would determine the practical
implementation of the new Congolese constitutional order. Participants said
there was an urgent need for a cease-fire as a precondition for the round table
to function effectively.
Every effort should be made to ensure that all foreign troops left the country as soon as possible, they said. An essential element of any lasting peace in the Congo had to, they maintained, be the disarming of the Interahamwe Hutu militia, the Rwandan Ex-Far and other armed groups currently destabilising the country.
Vasu Gounden of the Accord nongovernmental organisation which organised the Pretoria meeting said that while the opposition groups had disagreed on many issues they were satisfied with "frank and open discussion on many crucial issues". He said the various groups were in agreement that face-to-face talks between Kabila and the rebels were an essential precondition to a cease-fire.
Face-to-face talks between all opposition groups and Kabila on the transition to democracy should follow. Kabila has consistently refused to meet the rebels.
Among those at the meeting were the Archbishop of Kisangani, Laurent Monsengwo, rebel foreign minister Alexis Thambwe Mwamba, and a number of former ministers and high-ranking officials in the government of former Zairean dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. Gounden said the organisers of the meeting regretted that Kabila had not sent a representative to the talks.
Gounden said several former Mobutuist ministers had said they accepted collective and individual responsibility for what had happened under the former dictator's rule. They were open to the creation of a Congolese truth and reconciliation commission as part of the establishment of an inclusive democratic system and were prepared to appear before it.
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