DRC:A peace summit aimed at ending fighting in Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) blood-steeped eastern provinces of north and south Kivu opened yesterday without the presence of President Joseph Kabila and rebel leader Gen Laurent Nkunda, writes Joe Bavierin Kinshasa.
More than 400,000 north Kivu residents have been forced to flee clashes over the last year between soldiers, Gen Nkunda's insurgents, local Mai Mai militia and Rwandan rebels, despite the end of the country's broader 1998-2003 war.
President Kabila convened the conference after the disastrous failure of an army offensive against ethnic Tutsi fighters loyal to the general last month that worsened an already dire humanitarian crisis. The president had been expected to attend the opening, but pulled out at the last minute.
"This is the first time in the history of our country that the daughters and sons of these two provinces . . . come together with the sole and unique objective of peace, security, development," Interior Minister Denis Kalume, Mr Kabila's representative at the talks, said at the opening ceremony.
Gen Nkunda, whose National Congress for the Defence of the People has some 4,000 Tutsi fighters, will not attend the conference either but has sent a mixed military and civilian delegation.
DRC opposition has accused Mr Kabila of capitulating to the state's last major armed group by holding the talks. - (Reuters)