OWN CORRESPONDENT, Kisanjani | Tuesday 9.00pm.
THE rebels fighting to topple Democratic Republic of Congo President Laurent Kabila have vowed to fight on until he has been ousted.
Speaking in the Congolese city of Kisanjani following the failed summit at Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, rebel commander Jean-Pierre Ondekane told journalists that the rebels will continue their offensive.
Although invited to the summit, which was attended by the leaders of the six countries embroiled in the DRC conflict, once there, the rebel delegation was excluded from the conference itself. They left angrily on Tuesday.
Zambian President Frederick Chiluba, who chaired the summit, told reporters that the six leaders had agreed to a ceasefire. He said he was sure the rebels would feel “honour-bound” to uphold it. However rebel leaders say that since the agreement was reached “behind our backs”, they are not in the least bound by it.
Richard Cornwell of the Institute of Security Studies in Gauteng said on SABC3 that a long war can now be expected in the DRC. He said that both Angola and Zimbabwe, which sent tropps to support Kabila, “are desperate to pull their troops out of DRC for different reasons”. With Kabila’s allies gone, he said, the war would be one-sided, but drawnn out.
Moments after the “truce” was announced at the Victoria Falls summit on Tuesday, DRC Foreign Minister Jean-Charles Okoto said both Uganda and Rwanda, accused of supporting the rebels, had sent more tanks and troops into the DRC during the talks.
Rwandan spokesman Joseph Bideri said that “the rhetoric at the talks was characterised by old-fashioned, blatant lies” and said the leaders were “chasing a mirage because they had a golden opportunity” to hear the rebel case and missed it.
In the DRC itself Ondekane said in Kisanjani that although a rebel spokesman in Goma had declared the rebels to be on the outskirts of the strategic town of Kindu, from where air strikes have been launched against the rebels in the past three days, there was no intention to take the town.
He said that the warplanes which carried out the raids on the town of Kalemie on the northern border of Katanga province on Sunday and Monday were Angolan and Zimbabwean. “The Congolese armed forces have no [operational] aircraft,” he pointed out.
Kinshasa earlier said that its own planes — “patched up to operational standards” — had carried out the raids. Some 25 civilains are reported to have died in Kalemie as a result of the strikes.
Attempts to broker a peace agreement will now shift to an Organisation of African Unity conference in Addis Ababa on Thursday to be attended by member foreign ministers. The conflict is also on the agenda for a summit of the 14-nation Southern African Development Community in Mauritius on September 13 and 14. The rebels have indicated that they want to attend both conferences in an attempt to open negotiations.