Burundian Head of State engages in intense diplomatic activity on security crisis in DR Congo
Bujumbura, Burundi (PANA) - The Burundian head of state, Evariste Ndayisimiyé, and current chairman of the East African Community (EAC), arrived on Wednesday in Luanda, the Angolan capital, to participate in a regional mini-summit on the security crisis in DR Congo, an official statement said.
The mini-summit comes shortly after a meeting in Bujumbura between President Ndayishimiye and the ECA facilitator in the inter-Congolese peace process, former Kenyan head of state Uhuru Kenyatta.
The meeting ended with a communiqué announcing a dialogue session between the parties to the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
However, this meeting did not take place on the date initially indicated, 15 November, due to the reluctance of the ruling power in Kinshasa.
At the end of October, the Burundian head of state took the initiative through a telephone conversation with his counterparts in the sub-region on the same Congolese crisis.
The aim was to harmonize views on ways and means of managing the current security crisis in the east of the DRC.
It was also at the initiative of Burundi that a meeting of the heads of defence forces of ECA member countries was organized to study the parameters of a concerted and sustainable response to the security crisis in the DRC.
In addition, a Burundian initiative for an extraordinary summit of ECA heads of state on the situation in the DRC is being prepared.
The previous summit last June in the Kenyan capital Nairobi had decided on the creation of a joint military force to help restore security in North and South Kivu.
Burundi has already done so, sending a first battalion to the Congo. The mission of the Burundian contingent is to participate in the tracking down of paramilitary groups that destabilize security in the DRC, including the Alliance Democratic Forces (ADF) and the 23 March 2009 Movement (M23).
Rwanda is not part of the military intervention project in DR Congo, accused by the government in Kinshasa of helping the M23, which Kigali defends.
The Angolan mediation is also working to prevent the whole Great Lakes region from going up in flames, as it did in the years 1990-2000.
At that time, the DRC was the scene of a war involving nine countries in the sub-region and some 30 armed groups.
Rwanda opened hostilities by pursuing alleged 1994 genocidaires who had taken refuge not far from the DRC border.
The interplay of alliances, involving powers outside the sub-region, led to the second Congolese war being dubbed the 'Great African War' or the 'First African World War'.
-0- PANA FB/JSG/BBA/RA 23Nov2022
