Congo peace deal to be signed on Feb. 24, UN says

A delayed UN-mediated peace agreement meant to end the interminable cycles of violence in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo will be signed in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on February 24, the United Nations says.

The UN made the announcement in a statement issued on Saturday.

Leaders from the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) had originally been expected to sign the deal on January 29 on the sidelines of the African Union summit in Addis Ababa. But UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon delayed the signing over “procedural issues.”

Meeting in the Mozambican capital Maputo on February 8, ICGLR leaders approved the deployment of a 4,000-strong peacekeeping force, which would come from the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) countries, to Congo.

The force will be able to combat “whoever is trying to destabilize the situation in the eastern part of Congo,” SADC Secretary General Tomaz Salomao said after the meeting.

The force would be contained within the existing UN peacekeeping force in Congo, known as MONUSCO — the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

On Friday, the UN secretary general dispatched invitations for the February 24 signing ceremony and he will travel to Addis Ababa for the ceremony, UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said. “All the invited presidents have committed to either be there or delegate power to sign.”

In a message posted on Twitter, Rwandan Deputy UN Ambassador Olivier Nduhungirehe said that the “African Union, the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region, Southern African Development Community Chairs, as well as 10 Heads of States of the region will attend the signing ceremony.”

In July 2012, Congolese President Joseph Kabila and Rwandan President Paul Kagame, along with other leaders from the Great Lakes region, signed an accord that called for the creation of a neutral international military force to combat rebels in the provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu in the eastern Congo.

The agreement also called for the Great Lakes leaders to work with the African Union and the United Nations “for an immediate establishment of a neutral international force to eradicate M23, FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda), and all other negative forces in eastern DRC, and patrol and secure the border zones.”

The March 23 movement (M23) rebels defected from the Congolese army in April 2012 in protest over alleged mistreatment in the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC). They had previously been integrated into the Congolese army under a peace deal signed in 2009.

Since early May 2012, nearly 3 million people have fled their homes in the eastern Congo. About 2.5 million have resettled in Congo, but more than 460,000 have crossed into neighboring Rwanda and Uganda.

Congo has faced numerous problems over the past few decades, such as grinding poverty, crumbling infrastructure, and a war in the east of the country that has dragged on since 1998 and left over 5.5 million people dead