The SADC, EAC, CIRGL and AU Quadripartite Summit ended on Tuesday, June 27 in Luanda with the establishment of a framework for coordinating the actions of various forces deployed in eastern DRC. The leadership of this framework has been entrusted to the DRC.
Congolese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Christophe Lutundula Apala, welcomed the decision during an interview with Radio Okapi.
The participants at this summit agreed that the DRC should coordinate operations on the ground, reports Minister Lutundula:
“The leadership of everything is provided by the DRC, which must take ownership of the entire peace process. We also agreed that, in this leadership, the DRC benefits from the support of the African Union”.
Before arriving at this compromise, he pointed out, the discussions were stormy, particularly at two stumbling blocks:
“Define the role of the African Union and that of the DRC, which is in fact the country concerned in the first place, the hub of the entire coordination mechanism. The second problem is the exact nature of this quadripartite which brings together the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) and the African Union. Is this quadripartite a mechanism? or an additional organ? We concluded that it is a platform for consultation and harmonization”.
The Southern African Development Community decided on Monday, May 8 in Windhoek (Namibia), to send forces to restore peace and security in eastern DRC.
The SADC force should thus be added to that of the EAC having taken over areas previously occupied by the M23 but failed to end the insurgency in North Kivu.
