Tanzania, UN Team Press Congo, Burundi to End Meaningless Wars

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, May 05, 2002

Tanzania, UN Team Press Congo, Burundi to End Meaningless Wars

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Tanzania and a visiting delegation of the United Nations Security Council on Saturday urged warring parties in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Burundi to end their meaningless wars in favor of peace in the Great Lakes region.

Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa and the 15 UN envoys, who arrived here from Uganda for a one-day visit, made the remarks at a joint news conference following their meeting with the two countries' wars high on the agenda.

Mkapa urged the combatants in both wars to reach inclusive settlements under existing peace efforts, adding without elaborating that anyone not seeking peace would face more pressure to lay down their guns.

"The military option is out," he said. "As the political momentum grows over the DRC and Burundi, it's time for the groups that are still preserving the military option to recognize their leverage and choices are going to diminish and narrow if they don' t enter into negotiations."

Mkapa also urged political actors in two war-ravaged neighbors to put an end to their selfishness and broaden their horizons for the sake of peace.

"I believe very strongly that the delays (in implementing peace plans in the two countries) have been occasioned because of the supremacy of their interest in personal positions in final outcomes," he added. "It is the political leadership of all shades of persuasion who must realize that their people have suffered enough."

Jean-David Levitte, leader of the team and France's UN ambassador, said it was not acceptable for some in Burundi to go on fighting while others took the political path.

"They must join the peace process now and they must stop fighting," he said of two main Hutu rebel groups, the Forces for the Defense of Democracy (FDD) and the Forces for National Liberation (FNL). "There is absolutely no reason to continue this fight, it is meaningless."

"All nuances of the political spectrum are presented in the transitional government, so there is no reason for the FDD and FNL to continue this fight. It is meaningless. If they have requests and demands they can express them at the table for negotiations," he added.

British UN Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock said those who continue to preserve a military option either in the DRC or Burundi are just not going to be tolerated.

"If the combatants do not decide to enter peace efforts then the international community would pursue with regional leaders the possibility of applying pressure through sanctions," he added.

The war began in the DRC in 1998 when Uganda and Rwanda sent in troops to back armed rebels fighting incumbent President Joseph Kabila's father and predecessor as president Laurent while Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia sent troops to prop up the government.

An estimated two million people have died in Africa's third largest country, mainly from disease and malnutrition, although foreign armies have started withdrawing and a partial peace deal has been signed in mid-April. The Rwanda-backed Congolese Rally for Democracy is still battling on.

Fighting also ravages Burundi, where more than 250,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in an eight-year-old civil war between the Tutsi-dominated army and rebels of the Hutu ethnic majority.

Burundi inaugurated a multi-ethnic power-sharing transitional government in November last year that fostered hopes for an end to its conflict amid determined South African mediation.

But the two main rebel groups declined to join peace talks and both rebels and the army are regularly accused of killing civilians they suspect of collaborating with their enemies.

Tanzania, unlike many of its neighbors which have troops involved in the conflicts, has been sheltering more than one million refugees who have fled the wars.

The UN Security Council mission is scheduled to travel on to Burundi on Sunday and Rwanda on Monday before concluding their eight-nation whirlwind tour to assess progress in resolving long- standing conflicts in Africa.

Diplomats here said the UN ambassadors have floated a plan to solve one of the root causes of the conflict by creating security forces to prevent the DRC-based rebels attacking Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi.

The forces would be made up of the DRC troops working alongside soldiers from the three countries they are designed to protect.

Uganda and Rwanda have both justified the invading into the DRC by saying they need to protect their borders from guerrillas operating in its vast eastern wilderness.

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