16 12 13 DW – 'Need for another round of negotiations' in DRC

DW:
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the M23 rebels have signed a peace
agreement under which the insurgents will demobilize and transform themselves
into a political party. Members of M23 will also be granted an amnesty for acts
of war, and there are provisions for the return of refugees. Kenya is already
hailing this as a peace deal, but Kinshasa says there has only been a signing of
unilateral declarations. Phil Clark, is this then a peace deal in everything but
name?

Phil
Clark: I think this is a much more complicated situation than various parties
are suggesting at the moment. We don't have a single peace agreement that has
been signed by all of the relevant parties. In fact, what we have are three
separate agreements: one signed by the Congolese government, another signed by
the M23 rebels and a third agreement signed by the Great Lakes' leaders and the
Southern African Development regional body. And these three agreements
contradict one another on some very important points, particularly around
amnesty for the M23 rebels. So there is a great deal of confusion and a great
deal of uncertainty around this process at the moment.

Where
does the confusion lie as far as an amnesty is concerned?

The
Congolese government, along with the UN and southern African leaders, are
stipulating that it's only the lowest levels of the M23 rebels who should be
open to the possibility of amnesty and that those amnesties should only be used
for cases of what they're calling war and insurgency. So this would not apply to
anybody who is responsible for genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity.
But the M23 have signed a declaration which is much broader than that and would
extend amnesty even to the top of the M23 command chain – and would cover almost
all crimes that have been committed during the conflict. So this is a serious
sticking point in this peace process.

What
about reintegrating members of M23 back into the DRC armed forces? How difficult
is that going to be?

That's
going to be an extraordinarily difficult process. And again there's some
confusion across the three agreements about this issue of demobilization. There
is some suggestion that the M23 will now be forced to transform itself into a
political party, and that, in fact, M23 rebels will play a very little role in
the Congolese army in the future. But particularly in the M23 agreement, there
is an expectation of some reintegration of its members back into the Congolese
armed forces. If there is an attempt to reintegrate those combatants, that will
be very difficult because many of these individuals have previously been members
of the Congolese armed forces. There have been previous attempts to reintegrate
these individuals and those attempts in the past are largely seen to have
failed. So there are big questions about whether a new integration process would
be more successful this time around.

Does
M23 have a political future?

This
is one of the big outstanding questions in eastern Congo: Can the M23 rebels,
who have caused so much havoc, who have been responsible for very serious human
rights violations, transform themselves into a political movement that would be
considered legitimate amongst any members of the Congolese population in eastern
Congo? I think this is a big challenge for M23 at the moment. It's going to face
a great deal of skepticism and hostility when it returns to Congo. So I would
imagine that its political future is extremely uncertain.

The
three agreements you are referring to – do they have the makings of a peace
deal, even if they can't be officially described as one?

They
do have the makings of an effective peace deal, but I feel that there would need
to be another round of negotiations to try and find a coherent document that
would be agreeable to all of the parties.

 

Phil
Clark is a lecturer in international politics at SOAS at London
University

 

Interview:
Mark Caldwell