African leaders on Sunday urged for more regional efforts to be the main focus in solving the crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), while international actions should support these efforts.
Photo/Zanem Nety Zaidi/Xinhua
The call came during a one-day regional summit in Entebbe, Uganda, where leaders and diplomats met to deal with the worsening security problems in eastern DRC and how they are affecting the Great Lakes region.
Uganda's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, John Mulimba, said the participants agreed that the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) should lead the peace efforts to handle the rising conflict.
"We have agreed that while there are peace efforts like the Doha and Washington processes, the region must take the lead, and the region we are talking about is EAC and SADC," Mulimba said.
According to Mulimba, the summit also decided that the final statement should be revised within 10 days, with a follow-up meeting planned within two weeks to include a suggested regional peace plan.
In a statement during the summit, Rwanda said there was no need to create new peace structures, saying that current frameworks were enough to handle the long-standing conflict.
Rwanda's Minister of Interior, Vincent Biruta, pointed out that the main issue was not having enough action on the agreements that had already been made.
He said the Washington accord and the Doha peace initiatives were the best ways to tackle both internal and regional aspects of the conflict.
Biruta also reminded people about Rwanda's worry over the presence of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, a rebel group connected to the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, warning that not dealing with this issue "hurts trust and continues to be a big threat to regional security."
Earlier this month, Rwanda and the DRC signed a peace deal in Washington, brokered by the United States, with the aim of ending many years of fighting.
However, clashes have gotten worse in eastern DRC, with the M23 rebel group moving to new areas.
The M23 said this week it had started leaving Uvira, a key city in eastern Congo that it had taken control of a few days earlier, adding that the move was requested by U.S. mediators as a way to build trust and support the peace process.