The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) intends to play a central role in the Central Africa and Great-Lake sub-regions and to positively impact on their evolutions and development by adopting a more constructive attitude since it has for many years been a destabilising point in the heart of this region or the place of destabilising activities from its neighbourhood. In this respect, as from 1998, the DRC has been the theatre of a regional war opposing some Congolese rebels backed by Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi to the former president Laurent Désiré Kabila militarily supported by Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe - as well as Chad which soon withdrew from the conflict – and who was also helped by exiled soldiers from the ex-Rwandan armed forces (ex-FAR).


The vision of what would be the DRC foreign policy objectives within the framework of its transition towards a durable and sustainable peace and the [re]construction of a strong, efficient and effective state after years of political instability, rebellions, civil war, bad governance, lack of democracy, that normally started with the first presidential elections ever organised in more than 40 years, was expressed during the electoral campaign by the elected president Joseph Kabila.

 

The new president envisions to restore the State authority over its domestic and foreign policy. The new diplomatic orientations of the third Republic are not really ambitious but quite simple, classical and realistic. There is no hegemonic agenda over the sub-region. The main objectives of the DRC foreign policy have to do with the following:

 

-   Implement a good neighborhood policy with countries bordering the DRC;

-   Establish a safe area with its neighbours and reaffirm the integrating role of the DRC in the Central Africa sub-region;

-  Revitalize the DRC participation in main African international organizations and strengthen its initiatives within the framework of the Great Lake Conference for peace;

-   Launch initiatives aiming at strengthening the Great Lake Conference for peace;-   Define and focus the DRC diplomacy on essential axis avoiding scatters;

-   Implement a policy aiming at promoting Congolese competencies in international organisation (within the UN system, the Organisation Intergouvernementale de la Francophonie and the African Union).

Source: Afriquechos