Rwanda : Kagame, Kabila to Hold Private Talks in Ethiopia

In a bid to find a lasting solution to the rising tension in the Eastern part of DRC, Rwanda President Paul Kagame will on Sunday meet his counterpart Joseph Kabila on the sidelines of the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Both Presidents are attending the 19th Session of the African Union Assembly taking place from 15-16 July 2012 under the theme “Boosting Intra African Trade and which aims to build upon the commitment of all nations to achieve integration, economic growth and development.

Information available is that after participating in the closed session for the voting of the Chairman of the AU Commission, the two Presidents will hold private talks before issuing a press release.

DRC, Rwanda and neighbouring states called on Thursday for the creation of an international military force to eliminate armed rebels in the DRC’s turbulent east.

Their agreement, signed on the sidelines of an African Union summit in Addis Ababa, proposes an internationally-backed military response to an offensive by rebels in the DRC’s North Kivu province, a political and ethnic tinderbox.

The document was signed by the foreign ministers of nearly a dozen states of the Great Lakes region, including the DRC and Rwanda, and condemned recent advances by the Tutsi-led M23 rebel movement and a rebellion by predominantly Hutu fighters of the FDLR insurgent group in North and South Kivu.

It was not immediately clear in the text, to be presented to African heads of state at the Addis summit this weekend, where the troops would come from to establish the “neutral international force” that would take on the Congolese rebel groups.

Eastern Congo’s enduring conflict, which has killed, maimed and displaced several million civilians over nearly two decades, has its roots in Tutsi-Hutu ethnic and political enmities dating back to the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

In the document signed on Thursday, the states grouped in the International Conference of the Great Lakes Region proposed working with the AU and the United Nations to create “a neutral international force to eradicate M23, FDLR and all other negative forces in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

Led by Bosco Ntaganda, the mutiny in the Congo army has witnessed serious fighting between FARDC and rebels that recently captured Rutshuru and Bunagana towns.

The rebels also threatened to march to Goma if Kinshasha does not agree to hold talk with them.

DRC has repeatedly accused Rwanda of supplying logistics to the rebels, allegations Kigali vehemently denies.