Africa Moyo in NAIROBI, KenyaSADC Chairperson President Mnangagwa, who arrived here yesterday, will today meet his counterpart, President Dr William Ruto of Kenya, who is also the East African Community (EAC) Chairperson, to formally appoint a panel of five facilitators expected to find a durable solution to the conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.Senior officials are optimistic that the triple efforts of SADC, EAC and the African union (AU) will finally bring lasting peace in eastern DRC.The President was received at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport by Kenya’s Ambassador to Zimbabwe Gertrude Angote, Public Service and Human Capital Development Minister Geoffrey Kiringa Ruku, Prime Cabinet Secretary and Foreign and Diaspora Affairs Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi, Zimbabwe’s Ambassador to Kenya, Uganda and Somalia, Winpeg Moyo and embassy staff, among others.He is accompanied by Foreign Affairs and International Trade Minister Professor Amon Murwira and Deputy Chief Secretary — Presidential Communications, Mr George Charamba.The meeting will be held at State House in Nairobi.In addition to President Mnangagwa and Dr Ruto, the meeting will involve a panel of five facilitators, namely former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, former Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, former Central African Republic President Catherine Samba-Panza, former Ethiopian President Sahle-Work Zewde and former Botswana President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi.Other senior officials set to attend include AU Commission Chair Mr Mahamoud Ali Youssouf, SADC Executive Secretary Mr Elias Magosi and EAC Secretary General Ms Veronica Nduva.In an interview yesterday, Mr Magosi said the blocs will do all they can to ensure peace in eastern DRC.“This meeting is born from the joint EAC-SADC Summit of March 24, where the two co-chairpersons, the Chairperson of SADC and the Chairperson of the EAC, President Mnangagwa and President Ruto, were given the mandate, one to go and engage the facilitators to the DRC process; the five facilitators that the Summit itself proposed,” he said.“The second was for them to develop instruments that would be utilised by the facilitators; the terms of reference and the process they will follow.“The third was for them (co-chairs) to also develop a mechanism that joins or merges the Nairobi and Luanda processes. So, the two Presidents are meeting as co-chairs tomorrow (today) to look at these documents, which have been developed by the secretariats of SADC, EAC and the African union Commission.”The secretariats will first present the documents and once endorsed, the two leaders will then use them to brief the facilitators of the task at hand.As the Presidents do their work, they will be supported by ministers accompanying them.Togo will mediate the facilitation process.Turning to the situation in eastern DRC, Mr Magosi said it “remains where it was”.“Remember SAMIDRC (the Southern African Development Community Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo) terminated and soon we will be exiting DRC as a Mission (and) the expectation is that beyond this (withdrawal), this process (of facilitators) will now take root.“We might also be aware that there are other parallel processes that took place between DRC and Rwanda. For us as SADC, those are perhaps complementary efforts by all players, but we believe all of us, our interest is that we find peace in the DRC,” he said.His remarks come amid reports that the M23 rebels captured two villages in North Kivu on Monday, resulting in the villagers fleeing to other areas and some into the forests.Turning to when the panel of facilitators will start work, Mr Magosi said that would be guided mostly by “the preparation behind”.“First, they (facilitators) must internalise the instruments that I spoke to earlier, their terms of reference and see if they can run with them and secondly, there needs to be a process of how we facilitate ourselves (SADC, EAC) and the African Union; this is not an inexpensive exercise.“It requires resources, so we need to discuss how we are going to resolve that and third, they (facilitators) need technical experts behind them who will assist them to be able to execute their mandate more effectively.“So, tomorrow (today) we will also be going through some of these things and depending on all these things coming into place, then they should be ready to start running and doing that exercise,” he said.Asked if the people of eastern DRC, SADC and EAC should be hopeful that a permanent solution will now be found, Mr Magosi said: “We trust that solutions should be found.”He added that it was important to first understand that when the EAC and SADC came together, they were drawing lessons from the over 30 years of trying to find solutions, with not much changing, including the role played by the United Nations Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) in the last 20 years.“So, it was really to learn from those past frameworks, instruments, engagements and to say, what is it that we can do differently? And that’s why the two blocs came together and said can you create something?“And the recognition was that we need to bring the Nairobi and Luanda processes together, because when they are coming together, perhaps we can get better results out of that.“We hope that this time around, there should be something that gives us positive results,” Mr Magosi said.The optimism for a good deal emanates from the all-inclusive nature of the latest process, which has the government, military and non-state actors.Share on FacebookPost on XFollow usSave
Originally published on Zimbabwe Herald
Source: Herald
