President Kabila, you said today, "We have decided to restructure our political landscape to make it easier for our country, and the region, to be integrated into the global economy". Please elaborate.
Today’s world is what most people term as the free world, a world that is always in motion, a world where the word democracy is becoming like another verb. It has turned into a verb. I also mentioned that, in the last 40 years, we have been a turbulent nation.
So, we are trying to change, to move from a very unstable nation -- unstable as far as the institutions are concerned, unstable as far as the economy and policies are concerned into a world which is proving to be much more stable, with nations like this one, the United States, nations like South Africa, nations like Tanzania and Nigeria.
We are changing from the dictatorship that we’ve known over the last 36 years. So, basically it is that kind of transition that I’m talking of and that I talked about.
Are the short-circuited (Inter-Congolese Dialogue) peace talks in Addis (Ababa, Ethiopia) a step backwards in these terms?
The very fact that we are talking is a positive step in itself. It’s a step forward. You know, when you’re discussing, there are always bound to be contradictions and points you won’t agree on. It’s normal. What happened in Addis Ababa, I knew something like that would happen, because the talks were not very well prepared.
But I believe the facilitator (former Botswana president, Sir Ketumile Masire) is taking the time to prepare the talks, so that in South Africa we don’t leave again with the contradictions of Addis Ababa. So, all in all, for me it was a positive meeting.
President Kabila, who do you consider at fault for the failure of the Addis Ababa talks? These were meant to include all Congolese groups the government, the armed groups, rebels, civil society. You say the Inter-Congolese dialogue wasn’t well organized, but it’s not that there hasn’t been enough time to prepare. Who would you say is to blame?
I would say that we are all at fault: the rebels, the facilitator and, being objective, maybe as the government we didn’t push everybody hard enough to do things. But I would like to state that, before we went to Addis Ababa, I saw the facilitator and he told me that the meeting that he had called in Addis Ababa could rather be a meeting to review the problems that still existed; technical problems that we would have to study and find solutions.
So, there was rather a miscomprehension. People didn’t comprehend exactly what the meeting was. We had one comprehension of the meeting in Addis Ababa, the rebels had their own comprehension and the facilitator of course (had his own). So the blame should really fall on each and every one. But what’s more important is to look to the future and make things much more possible.
At every opportunity these days, you mention elections and the fact that you want to hold elections in Congo. What time frame do you envisage and will you be standing as a presidential candidate of your country?
What do you think? (SMILES) Should I stand?
What do YOU think? Do you think you should stand?
Well, I’ll ask advice from very many people before I decide what to do?
Does that mean you are considering it?
Well you know in life, for me life does not really mean, I mean my life does not hang between being a president and not being a president and that’s the end of life. No, I see life continuing, either being in the presidency or not.
But if, at all, I am given the chance to serve my country, like I’m doing right now, I’ll do it with all my heart and with a lot of love.
When I talk of elections, it is not a wish, it is not just a wish. This is a commitment, a commitment that stems from 1997 when the revolution triumphed. We promised free and fair elections two years from 1997. Too bad the war broke out one year later, so we didn’t have the time. So this is a commitment that we made and we want to see the country, or rather we want to see elections being held in the country.
Today it is very difficult to talk about a time frame. If at all the country was united, if there was no war and there was total peace, I could say why can we not hold elections in one year’s time or 18 months’ time?
But there are prerequisites to holding free and fair and truly democratic elections: 1, the country must be united, the administration must be one. There should be transparency in order to allow for each and every political party or candidate to do whatever campaigning they want to do.
That’s not the case today. Today, the country is sub-divided into two areas, the area under occupation which is also sub-divided into three other areas, under Ugandan, control, Rwandese control and another splinter rebel movements. So it’s quite difficult to say that we can hold elections tomorrow or the day after that.
But, if and when the country is reunified within one year or 18 months, I believe with the assistance of the whole world, the international community, we will be able to hold elections within that time frame.
Talking about the international community, many observers say that your late father, Laurent Kabila, squandered the international goodwill that he had when he arrived in Kinshasa in May 1997 and that, Kabila the younger, YOU, have also got international support and goodwill on your side. You are being feted all over the world, especially in the west. What do you think that western governments see in you that they didn’t see in your father that is positive?
Maybe western governments would be in a better position to answer that. But, when we talk of the goodwill of the international community in 1997, I don’t know. I don’t really know if there was enough goodwill.
When we arrived in 1997, what we could have wanted to see back then was true support, true support in all that we were doing and what we were trying to achieve. But what happened was the massacres of the refugees. That is one of the elements which dominated the whole scene in the 1997 period up to 1998 when the war broke out.
So, even today when we talk of goodwill, the goodwill of the international community, what’s good will? I mean, the goodwill that I would really like to see from the international community is really bringing an end to the war. Because we cannot talk of goodwill when the country, for the last three years, is and has been under occupation.
We have lost three million of our compatriots, directly or indirectly because of this war. Our resources are being looted and we talk of goodwill?!
For me, I just say that is pure hypocrisy.