Ruto in Angola for regional summit on Security

Deputy President William Ruto is in Luanda, Angola, to take part in a process led by the United Nations (UN) to stabilise the Great Lakes region.

Mr Ruto is representing President Uhuru Kenyatta and will be among leaders attending the United Nations Great Lakes Peace Security and Cooperation Summit, the seventh in a series of such conferences but the first ever to take place away from the African Union (AU) headquarters in Addis Ababa or the UN General Assembly.

This meeting, officially known as the High-Level Regional Oversight Mechanism for Peace, Security and Cooperation, targets the perennial conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Burundi, the Central Africa Republic and South Sudan.

In Luanda, world powers such as the US and other permanent members of the UN will be leading efforts to stem continued conflict, especially in DRC, where the international community has been trying to stop the civil war in the eastern part of the country.

TACKLING CIVIL WARS

The UN took the mantle in early 2013 in Addis Ababa, when it brokered an accord meant to bring peace to the DRC.

Known as the Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework, the deal was signed by Burundi, Angola, the Central Africa Republic, Congo-Brazzaville, DRC, South Africa, Rwanda, South Sudan Uganda and Tanzania.

Then UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon argued that the deal signalled a comprehensive approach to civil wars that have persisted for more than five decades. He appointed a special envoy for the region in 2014.

Initially excluded from such meetings, Kenya formally requested to play a role in 2013 when Nairobi hosted an extraordinary summit of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR)

At the time, President Kenyatta argued that stable countries in the region must be involved in peace efforts because they bear the brunt of conflicts by harbouring refugees and losing out on trade links.

GREAT LAKES DISCORD

For example, according to the latest data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are 27,485 refugees from DRC living in Kenya. Most of them (17,651) live in Nairobi, 9,549 are hosted AT Kakuma refugee camp in Turkana County and another 150 are in Dadaab.

The ICGLR meeting then agreed to formally ask the UN to grant Kenya and Sudan a seat.

The UN process is meant to bring 12 countries from the Great Lakes region to a discussion on how instability, armed conflict, humanitarian crises, natural resources and other related issued can be handled.

One of the issues the meeting is supposed to address is the continuing internal mistrust between countries that form the ICGLR.

For example, DRC has previously accused Rwanda and Uganda of fuelling the conflict in eastern Congo. But Kampala and Kigali deny this charge.

Instead, they have called for a stronger DRC army and the revamping of the UN mission in DRC (Monusco), which they argue has allowed rebels to thrive.