Sunday, 9 September 2012

Prez Paul Kagame snubs dead-end ICGLR Kampala-II Summit

(PHOTO: Prez Joseph Kabila arriving at Entebbe airport, Friday,

September 7, 2012)



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President Paul Kagame snubbed the dead-end ICGLR Kampala-II Summit at

Speke Resort Munyonyo.



He was instead represented by his hawkish defense and foreign

ministers, James Kabarebe and Louise Mushikiwabo respectively.



President Kagame had far more exciting glamorous stuff to attend to

in... Hong Kong (Young Presidents Organization and meeting with

business leaders), Tianjin (Summer Davos, meeting with PM Wen Jiabao),

and Beijing University (speech to students).



In the meantime, at Speke Resort Munyonyo in Kampala, the ICGLR Heads

of State Summit was experiencing a dramatic dwindling of the number of

of its presidential attendees.



Only 3 other regional presidents bothered to join current ICGLR

Chairman Yoweri Museveni at the closed-door Summit: Joseph Kabila

(DRC), Salva Kiir (South Sudan), and Jakaya Kikwete (Tanzania).



Though the leaders said in a statement released Saturday that the

"neutral force" will be "deployed under the mandate of the African

Union and the United

Nations," there was no significant progress.



To be sure, the communiqué also added that the ICGLR will find ways

for the "operationalization of the Neutral International Force within

three months."



Meanwhile, M23 will be left to their own devices, roaming free and

unfettered eastern DRC within the confines of their micro-state.



The communiqué also lauded President Kikwete for pledging troops to

the "neutral force."



This confirmation of Kikwete's pledge came as a stark rebuttal to the

contradictory claim made earlier by Ugandan Defense Minister Crispus

Kiyonga who told reporters that "no single country" had made such

pledge.



The ICGLR also wants regional member states to contribute 2 military

observers each to the Joint Verification Mechanism (JVM) that will be

based at Goma--with the exception of the DRC and Rwanda, who have to

contribute 3 monitors apiece.



The regional defense ministers will implement the JVM this upcoming week.



The paucity of the number of these observers doesn't bode well for

their mission.



Still sticking to her government's official talking points, Rwandan

Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo viewed the JVM as a sure way of

vindicating her country's innocence.



Said Mushikiwabo:



"Rwanda is very pleased that in actually one week we'll have officers

on the ground, near our

border, to observe that Rwanda has nothing to hide and cannot be part

of any action against its

neighbor."



But UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, in a strong-worded statement

read to the Summit by his Special Representative and Head of the UN

Regional Office for Central Africa (UNOCA) Abou Moussa, still bemoaned

"the continuing reports of external support to the M23, and call[ed]

for an end to all such support without delay."



What's more, Ban Kin-moon seemed to be rebuking Ugandan Defense

Minister Crispus Kiyonga who'd earlier speculated about the viability

of the option of revisiting the accord of March 23, 2009 between CNDP

and the DRC government.



Ban Kin-moon in effect wants M23 and other militias wreaking mayhem in

eastern Congo "to be thoroughly investigated by relevant institutions

and the perpetrators held accountable."



(Sources: newvision.co.ug; monitor.co.ug; newtimes.co.rw; AP; &

Kinshasa media outlets)



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PHOTO CREDITS: newvision.co.ug

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