DRC

Diplomats begin talks in DRC and Rwanda

Article published on the 2008-11-01 Latest update 2008-11-01 16:43 TU

Jendayi Frazer (L) and Alan Doss, meet Congolese officials at the airport in Goma
(Photo: Reuters)

Diplomats from France and the UK arrived in the Congolese capital Kinshasa on Saturday for a series of meetings and visits following this week's violence in the east of the country. The Foreign Ministers of France and Britain, Bernard Kouchner and David Miliband, are due to meet DRC President Joseph Kabila on Saturday. They will then visit Goma in the east of the country, the capital of the North-Kivu province.

The visits come after the European Union on Friday rejected the idea of an immediate deployment of a European military force which had been suggested by France and Belgium. Britain's Junior Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mark Malloch-Brown, has said however that a military force remains an option.

The head US diplomat for Africa, Jendayi Frazer, and EU Development Commissioner Louis Michel are also in the DRC this weekend. The head of the UN mission in the Congo (Monuc), Alan Doss, said on Friday that the current ceasefire was "only just a step that cannot be maintained if there is no progress on the diplomatic and political front."

"We're not sure how the rest of the members of the EU feel about deploying EU battlegroup into this very dangerous situation". Henri Boshoff of the Institute for Security Studies told RFI. He said it was one of the only solutions in the short-term but that, ultimately, a political solution was essential.

 

Both Miliband and Kouchner will continue from Goma to the Rwandan captial Kigali to meet President Paul Kagame.

Meanwhile, the UNHCR says it is "extremely concerned" about 50,000 displaced people in sites at Dumez, Nyongera and Kasasa.  Thousands of displaced people are reported to be moving along the roads out of Goma towards the camp of Kimbumba.