12 11 13 Reuters: Congo, M23 rebels peace signing delayed over wording of pact

 M23 gave up their 20-month
insurgency last week after the Democratic Republic of Congo's army, backed by a
U.N. force, routed them from their last hilltop hideouts along the eastern
border with Rwanda and Uganda.

Other rebels still roam the
vast country and stability remains a distant prospect in a region with rich
underground deposits of gold, diamonds and other precious minerals.

The deal between the Kinshasa government and M23 was due to be signed in the
Ugandan city of Entebbe
at 6 p.m. (1500 GMT) but was suddenly delayed, with no one knowing whether the
hold-up would last for hours or days.

"The stumbling point
is the parties cannot agree on whether they are signing a peace agreement or a
declaration. They agree on the content, but not the title. The Congolese
government says it came here to sign a declaration," Uganda's junior
foreign affairs minister, Okello Oryem, told Reuters.

Ugandan government
spokesman Ofwono Opondo said "there's no deal tonight", but could not
say when it would happen.

Congo government spokesman Lambert Mende said Kinshasa was willing to sign a document but
not one called a peace deal. "It's as if M23 still exists, it's as if it
is legitimating them despite them being a negative force," he said.

"We are ready to sign
a declaration of engagement between the government and former members of the
rebel group known as M23," he said in Kinshasa. Bertrand Bisimwa, the head of the
M23 political wing, declined to comment.

Ugandan President Yoweri
Museveni and envoys from the African Union and M23 as well as Western diplomats
waited for more than two hours for the ceremony to start but the Congolese
government delegation did not enter the room.

 

Risk of wider conflict

M23's rebellion had at
times risked sucking Congo's
neighbours into a wider conflict. United Nations experts documented evidence
that Rwanda and Uganda had supported the rebels, straining
relations with Kinshasa.
Both Kigali and Kampala repeatedly denied the allegations.

At the United Nations in New York, diplomats have indicated that the U.N. force
MONUSCO will now help Congo's
army against other armed groups, especially Rwandan Hutu FDLR rebels.

"There is some good
news from the Democratic
Republic of the Congo," U.N.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the General Assembly in a briefing,
referring to the end of hostilities. He did not mention the delay in signing a
pact.

"These are important
steps, for there is no purely military solution to the rebellion by the M23 or
by any other armed group," Ban said, cautioning that "there are
dozens of other armed groups still plaguing the eastern DRC."

The Congo accord
will address issues such as amnesty – for the act of rebellion, though not for
crimes against humanity. It also allows for reintegration of vetted rebels into
the army.

"We have said it
should be a document that focuses on ending the rebellion, not settling all the
problems between Congo, Rwanda and Uganda," said one senior
diplomat.

"For acts of
rebellion, the DRC government is ready to offer amnesty. But there is no
amnesty for major war crimes."

That will almost certainly
mean no amnesty for M23's military commander, Sultani Makenga, who fled across
the border and is now being held in Uganda, which has been trying with
international support to mediate an end to the fighting.

The deal will also address
disarmament and demobilisation of the rebels.

Analysts are sceptical
there will be sustained peace in the region, which has been devastated by two
decades of conflict that has killed millions and left millions more destitute.

"I don't think there
is a track record in the DRC of these sort of issues being resolved," said
Brian Dlamini, a country risk analyst for Rand Merchant Bank in South Africa.
"The DRC is a country of many countries."

Kinshasa has limited ability to exert its
authority over one of Africa's biggest
nations. There is no tarmac road connecting the capital to the main eastern
town of Goma.
Deep-seated regional rivalries could still unsettle any shaky peace.