OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday 10.00pm.
REBELS from the Democratic Republic of Congo have accused the Southern African Development Community of “legitimising” President Laurent Kabila.
In a propaganda war that is growing heated on all sides, the Congolese Democratic Coalition said in a press briefing in Midrand, near Johannesburg: “Granting legitimacy to the Kabila regime invariably means legitimising his genocidal policies” against the Tutsis. “The threat of extermination of all Tutsis is becoming a manifest reality.” The statement called on the leaders of the 14-nation Southern African Development Community to “change their position [and] pursue a political rather than military solution” to the problems in the DRC.
SADC members Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia have all sent troops and equipment to assist Kabila crush the rebels. Sudanese troops are also reported to have been sent to the DRC, although Sudan emphatically denies this.
Meanwhile the head of the rebels’ political wing in Goma, Ernest Wamba dia Wamba, says more than 2000 Rwandan Hutu extremists have arrived in Kinshasa to support Kabila. They were flown in on Tuesday from Brazzaville, he said. Both Kinshasa and the Republic of Congo government in Brazzaville have denied the allegations.
Also on Thursday a Kabila aide, Pierre-Victor Mpoyo, accused Rwandan Tutsi soldiers of massacring Hutu refugees in the former Zaire in 1996 and 1997. He told the French daily Liberation that Rwandan troops killed Hutu refugees after Tutsi rebels won a civil war and seized power in Kigali in 1994.
The 1994 Tutsi uprising in Rwanda follwed the genocide by extremist Hutus in which up to a million Tusis and moderate Hutus were massacred. Up to two million Hutus, many of whom had participated in the genocide, then fled Rwanda for Zaire, settling in camps around Bukavu and Uvira.
In late 1997 Kabila blocked a United Nations investigation into the massacre of Hutus during the campaign that brought him to power and toppled former dictator Mobutu sese Seko.
The UN Security Council has meanwhile repeated its call for an immediate cease-fire and the withdrawal of foreign troops. Previous calls by the Security Council for an end to the fighting have been unsuccessful.