The politics of conflict resolution in the Democratic Republic of Congo : the inter-Congolese dialogue process

The overall aim of the paper is to examine the process of the Inter-Congolese Dialogue (ICD) from the aborted Addis Ababa meeting, through the Sun City I process of February-April 2002, the December 2002 Pretoria agreement up to the Sun City II final talks of April 2003. The specific aim is to look at the politics surrounding the conclusion of the 'final' peace agreement of Pretoria in December 2002. We explore the debate as to whether this agreement will hold, thus finally bringing peace to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The thesis of the paper is that the agreement affords the DRC the second opportunity, after the failed national conferences of 1991-1992, to peacefully settle the conflict that has been on-going since DRC's independence in 1960. However, we also note that many obstacles remain before total peace can be achieved in the DRC. African Journal on Conflict Resolution Vol. 4 (1) 2004: pp. 65-8