KINSHASA: Long-awaited discussions to end a three-year war in the Democratic Republic of Congo are due to resume this month but for some in the central African capital informal talks have already started.

Frustrated by a diet of state-controlled news, a stuttering peace process and the constant backdrop of insecurity, people gather each day on Kinshasa’s streets to share information and debate the most pressing political issues of the day.

Known as the “standing parliament”, the forum attracts a throng of debaters throughout the day — some in suits and ties, others in rags — all risking arrest from ever-watchful police.

But desperate for an end to war in the mineral-rich country, where more than two million people have died over the past three years from violence, starvation and lack of access to basic health care, the self-styled “parliamentarians” keep returning.

“Most people here haven’t eaten today. Myself, I can go two or three days without eating. It’s the same for everyone here,” said Romain Kanda, a 43-year-old civil servant. “We can’t get tired of politics. It’s from here that we create change.

And while the leaders of the warring factions prevaricate, the “parliament debout”, which attracts about 100 people on an average day, has become a barometer of national opinion said to be infiltrated by police spies.

“The standing parliament is needed because public media is not open....newspapers are too expensive and when you talk about news on radio and TV, it’s all state-controlled, so it doesn’t always have credibility among the people.”

INFORMAL DIALOGUE: The most heated topic in recent weeks has been the so-called inter-Congolese dialogue aimed at ending Congo’s civil war.

The war begin in 1998 when rebels backed by Uganda and Rwanda sought to overthrow the late president Laurent Kabila while Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia sent troops to support him.—Reuters