Warring rebels and militias in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo signed a ceasefire deal on Wednesday aimed at ending conflict at the heart of one of the world's most deadly humanitarian catastrophes.
The peace pact in the eastern town of Goma was subscribed to by Tutsi rebels loyal to renegade General Laurent Nkunda, President Joseph Kabila's government, and several militia and armed groups from Congo's North and South Kivu provinces. While foreign observers welcomed the deal as a chance for lasting peace in Congo, they warned that its implementation could be difficult following the collapse of several previous attempted cease-fires in the east.
The United Nations and Western governments had been pressing Kabila, Nkunda and eastern armed faction leaders to make peace. Congo, a former Belgian colony, is a treasure chest of strategic minerals coveted by both the West and China, such as copper, gold, diamonds, uranium, and coltan, which is used in mobile phones and other consumer electronic products. The country's size and central location make it a key for stability at the heart of Africa.
Wednesday's peace deal was the fruit of more than two weeks of intense negotiations between the warring parties in Congo's turbulent eastern borderlands, where conflict has raged on for years despite the formal end of the country's 1998-2003 war.
A survey published this week by the International Rescue Committee aid group said Congo's war and its lingering aftermath had killed 5.4 million people, the highest toll of any conflict since World War Two. It said 45,000 Congolese were still dying each month, most from conflict-related disease and hunger.
The agreement establishes an immediate ceasefire and the creation in five days of a buffer zone to be patrolled by UN peacekeepers in North Kivu province, the scene of heavy fighting in recent months between Nkunda's rebels and government troops.
"This is a very important milestone for peace in eastern Congo," Anneke Van Woudenberg, senior researcher for New York-based Human Rights Watch and a Congo expert, told Reuters. She added: "But it's only the beginning and the road ahead will be difficult. Implementation will have its own challenges". A senior US State Department envoy, Tim Shortley, saw the agreement opening the way to ending over a decade of conflict.
"The signing of this document means the disengagement of all 25 armed groups in North and South Kivu," he said. Under the deal, a technical commission will be set up to oversee disarmament of the Nkunda rebels and Mai Mai fighters and their integration into the national army, or demobilisation. The government is promising an amnesty law for the Mai Mai and Nkunda rebels covering "insurgency and acts of war".
Earlier, Nkunda gave the go-ahead for the signing of the ceasefire pact after his negotiators met him on Wednesday to clear up last-minute objections to the text. The peace accord was due to have been initialled on Tuesday, but disagreements from Nkunda's side blocked the signing.
Implementing the deal may also depend on efforts to rid east Congo of Nkunda's traditional enemies, Rwandan Hutu rebels of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), who were not invited to the Goma peace conference.
Congo signed an agreement with Rwanda late last year promising to drive out the FDLR, some of whose leaders were responsible for the 1994 Rwandan genocide that slaughtered 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Nkunda led 4,000 fighters into the bush in a 2004 revolt and has justified his rebellion as an effort to protect east Congo's Tutsi minority against attacks by the Rwandan Hutu FDLR.
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