HARARE, March 18th (AMSP/CGTN) – – Foreign and defense ministers from the East African Community and Southern African Development Community met in Harare on Monday to find a diplomatic solution to the crisis prevailing in the East of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which is a member of both organizations.
An extraordinary summit of SADC earlier this month resolved to withdraw regional forces that have been helping the Congolese army fight M23 rebels. The troops won’t be pulled out hastily, even as emphasis now shifts to broader diplomatic efforts.
“We would not want to create a vacuum that generates even more problems…we highlight the request by the AU to set up a joint AU-AC-SADC coordination mechanism to provide technical support to enhance coordination and complement the Luanda and Nairobi processes in their merged form,” Kenyan Foreign Affairs Minister Musalia Mudavadi said.
The fighting in eastern DRC created tensions between the DRC and its neighbour Rwanda, which is accused of backing the M23, an accusation that Kigali has consistently denied. The joint summit in Harare urged all parties in the conflict to set aside individual interests.
“We urge us all to banish the spirit of narrow triumphism of any kind and focus on winning the wider peace and security for all African peoples in Eastern DRC, we should never confuse winning physical armed battles with winning the war. The real war is against poverty and deprivation,” Zimbabwean Foreign Minister Amon Murwira said.
The worsening security situation has created a humanitarian crisis which the United Nations estimates has displaced more than 700,000 people – more than half of them being children.
The meeting concluded that the next steps will call for bold and painful steps which require financial and technical support for them to have an impact. All member states were urged to exercise the necessary political will to bring peace to their troubled sister state.
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