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http://www.africanews.org/central/congo-kinshasa/stories/19990224_feat2.html
EU Adds Weight To DRC Peace Bid
February 24, 1999
By Christof Maletsky
Windhoek - The British government and the European Union are hopeful that a visit by British envoy Tony Lloyd to central and southern Africa will signal a change of attitude among warring parties in the six-month-old DRC conflict. A British diplomat in Windhoek said yesterday that Lloyd would meet Prime Minister Hage Geingob today.
"He will speak to Geingob about the situation in the DRC and what the UK and EU can do to help solve it," the diplomat, Nick Snea, said on enquiry from The Namibian. Lloyd, Minister of State in the Foreign Office, is dangling the promise of 100 million Euros (US$111 million) in European Union aid if the long -running DRC war be can ended and if the country moves toward a democratic government.
News agency AFP yesterday quoted Lloyd as saying that he and DRC President Laurent Kabila had agreed on the need for a cease-fire and a quick end to the war. The two met in the Congolese capital of Kinshasa on Tuesday.
He is the second special envoy to tour the region in the space of three weeks. Last month United States peace negotiator Dr Howard Wolpe said he hoped that the Lusaka peace initiative would be concluded soon because the political will existed.
He said protagonists in the civil war acknowledged they could not win and hoped a peaceful solution would be reached soon. However, there has been a recent flare-up in hostilities and the rebels launched a new offensive last week in which two Namibian soldiers were killed.
The British diplomat said he was not the right person to comment on whether Lloyd's visit would actually change things in the former Zaire but he remained positive. "We are very hopeful that he will achieve something positive," Snea said.
Lloyd will also discuss the situation in Angola with Geingob. Yesterday the British envoy was in Luanda and will meet Congo mediator and Zambian President Frederick Chiluba today after completing the Windhoek leg of his trip.
Chiluba, working under the auspices of the regional Southern African Development Community (SADC), is promoting a three-phase peace plan incorporating a truce, security guarantees for Uganda and Rwanda and direct talks between Congolese political parties. The deal, targeted for signing at the end of this month, will require the presence of thousands of United Nations and Organisation of African Unity peacekeepers.
Lloyd also plans to visit Zimbabwe, Rwanda and Uganda. Rwanda and Uganda are backing the insurgents who now control the eastern half of DRC - Africa's third -largest nation - while Kabila is being defended by Namibia, Zimbabwe, Angola and Chad.
When Wolpe visited southern Africa, he said the most encouraging development had been that none of the countries involved believed a military solution was feasible. "I have not talked to anyone who does not say - and I think with conviction - that there is no military solution, that everyone understands that there must be a political settlement of this conflict.
Everyone is also committed to the view that it's important to end the fighting, so that there can be enough space to commit to that kind of political negotiation."