DRC mission going 'faily well'
2008-11-15 17:13
Kinshasa - Former Nigerian President
Olusegun Obasanjo said on Saturday his efforts to end fighting
in the Democratic Republic of Congo were going fairly well and that President Joseph Kabila
had not given conditions for talks with the rebels.
Kabila's army is battling dissident Tutsi general Laurent
Nkunda's rebels and Obasanjo has been tasked by the United
Nations with stopping the violence escalating into a re-run of
the 1998-2003 conflict that sucked in six African nations.
"(I) am trying to draw together the strands that we need...
for us to be able to move forward. That has gone fairly well so
far," Obasanjo told reporters in Kinshasa after meeting Kabila.
He was due to fly to eastern Congo later on Saturday.
Obasanjo, named last week by UN Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon as his special envoy, met Angolan President Jose Eduardo
dos Santos in Luanda before flying to Democratic Republic of
Congo, and has already spoken to Nkunda by telephone.
He also met Congolese members of parliament and foreign
diplomats in the capital Kinshasa.
Nkunda began his rebellion in 2004 saying he was fighting to
defend fellow Tutsis in eastern Congo, particularly from attacks
by Rwandan Hutu rebels operating there.
'No conditions'
But after seizing swathes of territory in battles last
month, Nkunda threatened to take his rebellion all the way to
the distant capital Kinshasa unless Kabila negotiated with him.
Asked if Kabila was ready to talk to Nkunda, Obasanjo said:
"He did not give anything that I would call conditions but we
are at the exploratory stage now."
The United Nations says the fighting has triggered a
humanitarian catastrophe. On Friday, aid workers began feeding
tens of thousands of refugees in rebel-held areas.
There are fears the violence could escalate into a repeat of
a 1998-2003 war that killed some 5.4 million people, mostly
through hunger and disease.
Rights groups say rebels and rival
pro-government militias killed dozens of civilians last week.
- Reuters