Who are the three new peace mediators in the DR Congo crisis?

On Monday, March 24, three new facilitators—all former African heads of state—two of whom are women—were announced to assist in the ongoing negotiations to find a lasting solution to the eastern DR Congo crisis. They will work alongside former Kenyan and Nigerian presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Uhuru Kenyatta, respectively.

In order to address the security situation in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, the combined East African Community (EAC) and Southern African Development Community (SADC) Summit was conducted Monday evening. The eminent individuals were added to the panel of facilitators.

The new facilitators are former Ethiopian President Sahle-Work Zwelde, Catherine Samba Panza of the Central African Republic, and Kgalema Motlanthe of South Africa. The peace process for DR Congo was facilitated in February by Uhuru, Obasanjo, and Hailemariam Desalegn, the former prime minister of Ethiopia. Since then, Ethiopia’s previous president has taken over as prime minister.

Petrus Motlanthe Kgalema

After Thabo Mbeki resigned, 75-year-old South African politician Kgalema Motlanthe took over as president for a brief period of time, from September 2008 to May 2009. Later, he was Jacob Zuma’s deputy president from 2009 to 2014.

He joined the African National Congress’s armed wing immediately after high school, marking the beginning of his political career. He was incarcerated on Robben Island from 1977 to 1987 as a result of his anti-apartheid actions.

From 1997 until 2007, he served as the ANC’s secretary-general when apartheid came to an end. After winning the ANC deputy presidency in 2007, he was sworn in as a member of parliament and became South Africa’s second minister in the presidency under President Mbeki in the middle of 2008, which was his first position in the administration.

On September 25, 2008, just a few weeks after assuming office, Thabo Mbeki resigned at the ANC’s request, and Kgalema Motlanthe was elected national president. He served as president for just seven and a half months.

Motlanthe was named deputy president after Jacob Zuma took office in May 2009. When he campaigned for ANC president in December 2012, Zuma defeated him handily.

In the past, he has also held a number of other positions. He was in charge of a committee that managed South Africa’s preparations to host the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Sahle-Work Zewde

Zewde, a 75-year-old Ethiopian diplomat, presided over Ethiopia as its president from 2018 until 2024. The first woman to occupy the position was her.

Before becoming president, she was the Head of the United Nations Office to the African Union (UNOAU) at the Under-Secretary-General level and a special representative of UN Secretary-General António Guterres. In the past, she served as the Director-General of the UNON, the United Nations Office in Nairobi.

Zewde is a French graduate of the University of Montpellier with a degree in natural sciences. She is proficient in Amharic, the official working language of Ethiopia, as well as English and French.

She has an impressive diplomatic background, having held positions as the Permanent Representative of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the Ambassador of Ethiopia to France, and the Accredited Representatives of Tunisia and Morocco from 2002 to 2006.

She served as the Permanent Representative of Ethiopia to the Intergovernmental Authority for Development (IGAD), Senegal, and Djibouti. She also held accreditations to Mali, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Gambia, and Guinea.

The Samba-Panza Catherine

Samba-Panza, 70, is a politician from Central Africa who served as the Central African Republic’s (CAR) interim president from 2014 to 2016, making history as the nation’s first female head of state.

In support of women’s law, she has taken part in a number of initiatives as a human rights activist and corporation lawyer.

As a member of the Central African Republic’s Wise group and the National Council of Mediation, she has frequently participated in the country’s discussion and national reconciliation initiatives.

She served from 2013 to 2014 as the mayor of Bangui before taking over as interim president.

As an advocate for women’s rights, Samba-Panza started her career running an insurance brokerage. She was selected as the vice president of a national reconciliation conference in 2003, and she was later elected president of the committee that followed to carry out the conference’s recommendations.

Following her tenure as president, she remained in Bangui and continued to advise the administration on matters like peace mediation. As an election observer with the Carter Center, she supervised elections in Senegal, Liberia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

They have to play a constructive role in ending the nearly three-decade-old conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

Mbeki stated this year that, in accordance with the Sun City Agreement Kigali and Kinshasa agreed in April 2003, DR Congo should disarm genocidal forces that escaped to Congolese territory after committing the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.

According to Mbeki, the Sun City Agreement, which was signed by the leaders of the two nations and witnessed by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and others, can guarantee peace and security in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo by disarming these adversaries. The fulfillment of the agreement, he emphasized, will result in a political solution, which is “the only way to solve the problem.”