/ 30 June 2000

RWANDAN, UGANDAN PRESIDENTS TO MEET

FORMER brothers-in-rebellion and now Presidents Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda will try to mend fences on Saturday after their armed forces clashed earlier this month in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The pair are expected to try to settle their differences in two days of meetings, in the wake of heavy fighting that raged in the northeast DRC city of Kisangani between June 5 and 11. Some 600 people, many of them civilians, were killed and some 3000 wounded in the clashes, according to the United Nations. It was the third time Rwandan and Ugandan forces had clashed in the diamond centre since August 1999. Kagame and Museveni back separate rebel groups opposed to DRC President Laurent Kabila’s forces, who are supported by Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe in a war that has raged in the north and east of the DRC for the past two years. Their summit on the shores of Lake Victoria is due to begin on Saturday afternoon and continue into Sunday. A goverment source in Kigali said a large Rwandan delegation would be present and that the meeting would last “as long as was needed.”