Tears, Hugs and Ululations as DR Congo Peace Pact Signed
Last minute delays which had become the norm in a process that began 40 months ago looked like robbing the 80 participants of final victory.
But the DRC's exhausted political elite -- government, opposition and rebels -- eventually bowed to domestic and international pressure and began signing the agreement in the early hours of the morning after a final marathon round of negotiations that had lasted virtually nonstop since Sunday.
A group of women peace activists sang hymns as the mediators wrestled with last minute problems.
Their solemn tunes broke into shrieks and ululations when first the Ugandan-backed Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC), then the Rwandan-backed Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD), and then the government signed.
But with more than 50 people having to sign the deal -- that will give the DRC a government of national unity in a two-year run-up to its first democratic elections since those on independence from Belgium in 1960 -- it was daylight before the process was completed.
"Soon the peace flower will perfume the beautiful Congo," UN special envoy Moustapha Niasse told them.
Niasse became the mediator of the inter-Congolese dialogue after lengthy talks in the South African resort of Sun city failed to deliver an inclusive agreement earlier this year to end the brutal war which erupted in 1998 and at its height drew in seven other African nations.
The war in the huge mineral-rich but ravaged country is estimated to have left some 2.5 million people dead, the vast majority of them civilians.
When follow-up talks began in Pretoria in October, South African Provincial Affairs Minister Sydney Mufamadi, who was a key figure in negotiating an end to apartheid in South Africa, was drafted in as Niasses co-mediator.
"This is a moment of promise for the Congo," Mufamadi, who had set a deadline of December 14, told AFP as the signing process got underway. "The Congolese people can go about their normal lives safe in the knowledge that their political leadership has at heart the safety and prosperity of their country." Kinshasa government delegation leader Vital Kamerhe told AFP: "I am happy that the promise made by President Joseph kabila to have a transitional government in the Congo by January has been fulfilled."
Niasse read a message of congratulations to participants from South African President Thabo Mbeki, who was instrumental in crafting the final deal, which will see Kabila remain as head of state for the transition, seconded by four vice-presidents representing each of the two main rebel movements, the government, and the unarmed opposition.
He also told them they would receive the draft of a transitional Constitution within 10 days.
"That meeting will not be a long affair and it will officially start the transitional process you have agreed," he said. Mufamadi told them: "If this negotiation process looked hard you must accept that the actual implementation of the agreement may prove even more difficult."
The government flashed a warning light at participants by signing the agreement under protest.
"We do not agree that the speaker of the National Assembly should go to the MLC," Interior Minister Theophile Mbemba told delegates.
"It should go to the political opposition. "In the national interest, we have agreed to sign, but with that reservation."
Olivier Kamitatu, secretary general of the MLC, did not respond to this. His organization has insisted on getting the speakers position to balance what it saw as a bias in the executive in favor of the government and the RCD.
In a conciliatory interjection, Kamitatu said: "For all of our lives we will carry the stigma of having started a war. We will carry this weight for having been responsible for waging war. "To all the innocent victims, we ask forgiveness." Azarias Ruberwa, the RCD delegation head, said: "We made concessions to sign here and one of these was to stop fighting. Now nobody can go back to war. Ever."