Text:
http://www.africanews.org/central/congo-kinshasa/stories/19990119_feat5.html
Presidents Agree On Congo Truce
January 19, 1999
Kampala - The one-day summit of regional leaders in Windhoek, Namibia, yesterday,
has ended with the leaders of the core group of countries involved in the
conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo agreeing to sign a cease-fire
agreement.
At a press briefing attended by all the leaders, Namibian President Sam Nujoma said he will report to his Zambian counterpart Frederick Chiluba that all the parties involved in the conflict in Congo have agreed to sign a ceasefire agreement in Lusaka at a date to be agreed on. He said the rebels fighting in Congo will also sign the ceasefire but on a separate document.
But Congolese rebels said a reported ceasefire deal between African nations fighting in the Congo would not be enough to end their uprising, and they demanded direct talks with President Laurent Kabila. Rebel leader Arthur Zahidi Ngoma of the Congolese Rally for Democracy said there could be no lasting peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire, without his group's participation in negotiations.
"There remains the question of the internal conflict, which can only be solved with direct negotiations with Kabila," Ngoma told Reuters by satellite phone from a rebel base in the eastern Congo town of Goma. Namibian President Sam Nujoma announced earlier that leaders of the African countries fighting in the Congo had agreed during peace talks in the Namibian capital Windhoek to sign a ceasefire to end the five-month-old civil war. But Ngoma said an end to foreign involvement in the war could only form part of a lasting peace deal.
"It is not (primarily) a conflict between sub-regional states. It's an internal conflict," he said on being informed of the reported deal. Nujoma said after receiving his report about the deliberations in Windhoek, Chiluba will call a full summit of all the leaders for the signing of the ceasefire. He told the press that the leaders at the summit yesterday discussed the modalities of signing the cease-fire, the security concerns of the countries neighbouring Congo, the deployment of a peace-keeping force and the involvement of the rebels in the signing. Nujoma said OAU Secretary General will report to his UN counterpart who will in turn report to the Security Council to consider ways to put the force in place. A press release said Museveni requested the summit.
The summit was attended by Museveni, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Pasteur Bizimungu of Rwanda and the Angolan Minister of National Defence, Mr. Pedro Sebastiao.
Copyright © 1999 New Vision. Distributed via Africa News Online (www.africanews.org). For information about the content or for permission to redistribute, publish or use for broadcast, contact New Vision at the link above.