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The district of Ituri, in Oriental Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, has been the theatre of spiralling violence bordering on genocide that urgently needs to be stopped. A French-led Interim Emergency Multinational Force (IEMF) is being deployed to restore peace and order in the administrative centre – Bunia – and facilitate humanitarian relief.

While a transition government is scheduled to be installed in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in June 2003, the program of the United Nations Mission in Congo (MONUC) for voluntary disarmament and demobilisation, repatriation, rehabilitation and reintegration (DDRRR, henceforth DR) of foreign armed groups has remained a failure.

December 2002 witnessed the signing of a power sharing agreement between Congolese parties under the auspices of the UN Special Envoy, Mustapha Niasse, and South Africa that should lead to finalisation of the Inter-Congolese Dialogue and a transitional government.

After seven weeks of negotiations at Sun City, a partial agreement was reached on 19 April 2002 between Jean-Pierre Bemba’s MLC (Mouvement pour la libération du Congo) and the government of Joseph Kabila.

The Democratic Republic of Congo remains a failed state, occupied by six foreign armies, tormented by militias and unable to meet the most basic needs of its people. The war, which began in August 1998, has not yet ended.

More than two years after the signing of the  Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement, the Inter-Congolese Dialogue officially opened in Addis Ababa on 15 October 2001, under the facilitation of Sir  Ketumile Masire, the former President of Botswana.

There are many challenges facing the Lusaka cease-fire signatories and the wider international community in implementing the Congolese peace agreement, but perhaps none so complex as the effort to disarm the non-Congolese armed groups destabilising the region from Congolese bases.

Joseph Kabila, son of the late Laurent Désiré Kabila, speaks a far more peaceful language than that of his bellicose father. But he will not be able to deliver peace alone, and there are already signs that the many parties to the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo are heading for renewed confrontation.