OWN CORRESPONDENT, Kinshasa | Tuesday 11.00PM.
PRESIDENT Laurent Kabila has again fled the captital of Democratic Republic of Congo, this time taking some of his ministers with him after raiding the central bank, rebels fighting to depose him have claimed.
Bizima Karaha, Kabila’s former foreign minister who has defected to the rebels, said that Kabila “had taken all the money and left with all those from Katanga. The ministers — [Interior Minister] Gaetan Kakadji and [Justice Minister] Mwenze Kongolo — went with him.”
Earlier, DRC Information Minister Didier Mumengi told reporters that Kabila was “in the country”, but refused to be more specific.
In Kinshasa a local newspaper has quoted a rebel source as saying that the rebellion has the backing of both France and the United States. The source said the US and France pledged their support to the uprising on condition there would be no bloodbath or displacement of civilians. France has denied involvement.
Meanwhile Southern African Development Community defence ministers meeting in Harare on Tuesday said that member states should offer whatever support they could muster to assist Kabila. However foregn ministers due to brief the meeting failed to arrive in Zimbabwe, and are still in central Africa.
The bodies of 150 massacred Tutsis were found after rebels captured the eastern border town of Bunia at the weekend, the Ugandan state-owned newspaper New Vision said on Tuesday. Bunia residents told the paper that government troops of the 53rd army battalion had carried out the massacre.