Four of the main DRC armed groups sign a ceasefire in Ituri province

2023-06-03 16:49:53

The agreement contemplates a road map to put an end once and for all to the bloody ethnic conflict that has ravaged the territory for decades.

MADRID, 3 Jun. (EUROPA PRESS) –

Four of the main armed groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, including such fearsome militias as the Cooperative for the Development of Congo (CODECO), have agreed to a ceasefire in Ituri province, one of the great epicenters of violence in the northeast of the country, after several days of negotiations under the auspices of the United Nations.

Together with CODECO, the Ituri Patriotic Resistance Front (FRPI), the Congo Patriotic and Integrationist Front (FPIC) and the Ituri Popular Self-Defense Movement (MAPI), four armed groups that have accumulated thousands of of deaths behind their backs in a region historically marked by the conflict between farmers of the Lendu ethnic group and Hema herders who have ended up resolving their traditional differences through armed struggle, confrontations with the Army and campaigns of terror against the local population.

In its first reaction to the signing of the agreement, the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) has hailed the document as “a great step forward” for the four signatory groups and has encouraged the rest of the Congolese militias to follow suit and “lay down your arms”.

A DIALOGUE WITH VARIOUS GANGS

At the end of last month, the military officer in charge of the Ituri region, General Johnny Luboya, already advanced that the security situation in the province had significantly improved thanks to a round of talks between his forces and local leaders, who acted as intermediaries. with the militias in the midst of the state of emergency situation declared in the province in 2021.

The final phase of the negotiations culminated this week in the rural municipality of Aru (300 kilometers from Bunia, the provincial capital) with a three-day meeting, which ended on Thursday, between the leaders of the militias, local authorities and representatives of civil society, and ratified in a ceremony announced the next day by the official Congolese news agency ACP.

The militia leaders have signed this compromise agreement to mainly facilitate the transit of goods and development in one of the most deteriorated provinces of the African country, together with neighboring North Kivu, also under a government of military exceptionality, but even more volatile due to the activity of the bloodthirsty militias of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) and the March 23 Movement.

Under the agreement, reported by Radio Okapi, the four militias undertake to cease hostilities against the Congolese Army as well as attacks against the civilian population, as well as “promote the return of displaced persons and refugees to their places of origin, not bear arms or any military indicia and no longer give in to all influence, manipulation aimed at disrupting peace, security and social cohesion in Ituri”.

The militias and the rest of the signatories also undertake to “materialize” the so-called Disarmament, Demobilization, Stabilization and Community Recovery Program to guarantee the reintegration of the militiamen into civil society and to take the necessary measures so that violence does not reproduce itself community level.

Finally, the signatories undertake to take new steps to consolidate the cessation of hostilities through the drafting of a road map with a view to the definitive end of this long conflict.