Kigali, 20 November 2007 (Agence Europe) - Members of the European Parliament and their colleagues from African, Caribbean and Pacific countries, meeting in Kigali for the 14th Joint Parliamentary Assembly (JPA), unanimously expressed their strong concerns, on 20 November, concerning the resumption of conflict, the escalation in violence and the atrocities committed in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which threatens the stability of the entire African Great Lakes region. Disarming all the renegade militias and factions, whether national or from other countries, is the best way, in the general opinion, to restore respect for the authority of the state throughout the country and to defuse the time bomb which the armed conflict in the north of Kivu (on the border with Rwanda and Uganda) and its stream of human rights violations have come to represent. This high-priority demand and the message of encouragement to DRC and its neighbour, Rwanda, to implement efforts towards conciliation contained in a joint press release of 9 November will be the central point of the urgent resolution to be adopted by the Joint Parliamentary Assembly on 22 November. The text will also demand that the mandate and means of the MONUC be strengthened, and that an end be brought to impunity: those responsible for human rights violations, war crimes, crimes against humanity, sexual violence against women and the recruitment of child soldiers must be denounced, identified, pursued and punished, in accordance with national law and international criminal law.
During the debate, Jürgen Schroeder (EPP-ED, Germany), who led the European Parliament mission to observe the first democratic elections in DRC in 2006, stressed the progress which has been made in a country which is “more democratic than before, even though the situation in Kivu is a humanitarian and security disaster”. Nonetheless, “as children die, women are raped and fighting along ethnic lines (…) the crisis could escalate and threaten the stability of the Great Lakes region”, he said. The unanimous adoption of the resolution will, in his view, send out “a clear signal to governments that the Kivu provinces need to be pacified and brought into the democratisation process”. Benjamin Bounkoulou, a parliamentarian from the Republic of Congo (Brazzaville), spoke of “extreme concern for our neighbour and brother” and welcomed the recent efforts made by Burundi, DRC, Uganda and Rwanda to stabilise the Great Lakes region. “International public opinion must be aware that, just as in Darfur, this is a true political and humanitarian drama”, said Alain Hutchinson (PES, Belgium), recalling the “urgent need to be bold in improving the security situation”. In order to do this, he believes that illegal groups must be disarmed, property must be returned to dispossessed people and power returned to elected officials.
In spite of their commitments, the 17 000 MONUC soldiers and the regular Congolese forces have not been able to put down the troublemakers, noted Johan van Hecke (ALDE, Belgium). The MEP stressed that fighting involving “the regular forces and other armed forces” have caused some 300 000 people to leave their homes since December 2006, warning: “we are not far off a humanitarian disaster”. Since Lusaka in 1999, eleven agreements have been signed which mention the need to dismantle different armed forces - a task “which falls primarily to the authorities in DRC themselves”, Mr van Hecke observed, expressing the hope that “this time the government of DRC, with the help of the MONUC, will succeed” in resolving the current crisis.
“We hoped that the first democratic elections after years of dictatorship and civil war would restore stability, but unfortunately the situation in the east of Congo leaves much to be desired”, said Yaw Baa, a representative from Ghana, citing the villages attacked by the rebel general Laurent Nkunda, the ethnic tensions, the rape of women and the re-emergence of child soldiers after “the United Nations and the EU have spent millions of euros” to given them their childhood back. “At the moment, the east of Congo is a safe haven for armed rebels from Rwanda and Uganda fighting democratically elected governments”. He appealed for the signatory states of the Pact on Security, Stability and Development in the Great Lakes region to ratify and apply it, and for a resumption of negotiations between the party in power in Congo and the opposition. “Joseph Kabila must talk to Bemba to reverse the escalation of tensions and its ramifications for the Great Lakes region”. Marie-Hélène Aubert (Greens, France) called for a “burst of effort” from the Congolese authorities and an increase in the resources allocated by the EU so that “infrastructures, particularly for education and health, finally improve in Congo”, and that the people, in their day-to-day lives, “finally see that something has happened since the elections”. The urgent matter, underscored Marie-Hélène Carlotti (Socialist, France), is to “confine the militias and cut off their external supply lines, and to reassess the MONUC mandate to focus on northern Kivu”. She also hoped that the International Criminal Court would open an enquiry. Prosper Higiro, a senator from Rwanda, called on those Great Lakes countries which have not signed the Pact on Security, Stability and Development to do so, and on the Congolese authorities to disarm the ex-FAR/Interahamwe (a genocidal military organisation) “which continues to commit its foul deeds in DRC”. Christophe Lutundula, the Vice-President of the National Assembly in DRC, thanked the JPA “for your interest in our country”. “The drawn-out process of peace in DRC is a common heritage for the AU, the international community and the EU”, he said. He also stressed the “impossibility for a country recently emerged from war of putting in place a powerful, dissuasive army in just one year”. (A.N)