Deputy President William Ruto is in Luanda, Angola, to take part
in a process led by the United Nations (UN) to stabilise the Great
Lakes region.
Mr Ruto is representing President Uhuru
Kenyatta and will be among leaders attending the United Nations Great
Lakes Peace Security and Cooperation Summit, the seventh in a series of
such conferences but the first ever to take place away from the African
Union (AU) headquarters in Addis Ababa or the UN General Assembly.
This
meeting, officially known as the High-Level Regional Oversight
Mechanism for Peace, Security and Cooperation, targets the perennial
conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Burundi, the
Central Africa Republic and South Sudan.
In Luanda,
world powers such as the US and other permanent members of the UN will
be leading efforts to stem continued conflict, especially in DRC, where
the international community has been trying to stop the civil war in the
eastern part of the country.
TACKLING CIVIL WARS
The UN took the mantle in early 2013 in Addis Ababa, when it brokered an accord meant to bring peace to the DRC.
Known as the Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework, the deal
was signed by Burundi, Angola, the Central Africa Republic,
Congo-Brazzaville, DRC, South Africa, Rwanda, South Sudan Uganda and
Tanzania.
Then UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon argued
that the deal signalled a comprehensive approach to civil wars that have
persisted for more than five decades. He appointed a special envoy for
the region in 2014.
Initially excluded from such
meetings, Kenya formally requested to play a role in 2013 when Nairobi
hosted an extraordinary summit of the International Conference on the
Great Lakes Region (ICGLR)
At the time, President
Kenyatta argued that stable countries in the region must be involved in
peace efforts because they bear the brunt of conflicts by harbouring
refugees and losing out on trade links.
GREAT LAKES DISCORD
For
example, according to the latest data from the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are 27,485 refugees from DRC
living in Kenya. Most of them (17,651) live in Nairobi, 9,549 are hosted
AT Kakuma refugee camp in Turkana County and another 150 are in Dadaab.
The ICGLR meeting then agreed to formally ask the UN to grant Kenya and Sudan a seat.
The
UN process is meant to bring 12 countries from the Great Lakes region
to a discussion on how instability, armed conflict, humanitarian crises,
natural resources and other related issued can be handled.
One of the issues the meeting is supposed to address is the continuing internal mistrust between countries that form the ICGLR.
For
example, DRC has previously accused Rwanda and Uganda of fuelling the
conflict in eastern Congo. But Kampala and Kigali deny this charge.
Instead,
they have called for a stronger DRC army and the revamping of the UN
mission in DRC (Monusco), which they argue has allowed rebels to thrive.
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