OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday 11.00PM
REBELS in the Democratic Republic of Congo have said they are willing to consider a cease-fire with embattled President Laurent Kabila.
However they have also accused him of planning a massacre of 20000 Tutsis in the Moba region in southern Katanga province, which is Kabila’s traditional stronghold.
Kabila and several government officials, including two cabinet ministers, are believed to be in the Katangese capital, Lubumbashi.
Professor Ernest Wamba dia Wamba, leader of the Congolese Rally for Democracy, the political wing of the rebel movement, told reporters: “We have just learned that Kabila just gave an order to two brigades to kill more than 20000 Congolese Tutsis living in the Moba region.”
Wamba said he had received a telephone call from the deputy commander of one of the brigades ordered to do the shooting. The officer had “chosen to flee with his unit and join our forces at Kalemie, and has refused to obey this order”.
At the same time a report from Belgium has quoted the Belgian foreign minister, Erik Derycke, as saying Belgium is concerned about the possibility that Katanga might attempt to secede from the DRC. Dreyke said arms were being distributed among the Katangese population.
A spokesperson for the SADC countries who earlier were said by Zimbabwe to have agreed to military support of Kabila told reporters on Wednesday night that diplomatic efforts to end the war were not yet exhausted.
“We have not yet come to the stage where we have to seek a [military] solution,” SADC secretary Kaire Mbuende said. The SADC countries were considering a blockade of supplies to the rebels, who “cannot sustain their fight without supplies from outside the country”.