PRESIDENT Laurent Kabila’s government said it would not attend a meeting in Benin called by Africa’s envoy overseeing preparations for national dialogue in Democratic Republic of the Congo, as foreseen in a 1999 peace deal. Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Yerodia told state radio that rebels who took up arms in 1998 first had to “denounce the schemes” of their sponsors, Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi. Botswana’s ex-president, Sir Ketumile Masire, named “facilitator” of the Congo talks by the Organisation of African Unity in December, has called a meeting of a preparatory commission in Benin’s main city Cotonou for June 5-7. “We are not ready to sit down with people who commit or allow others to commit massacres,” Yerodia said, adding that the rebels shared the blame for massacres in the Democratic Republic of Congo with their sponsors.