AFP, Windhoek | Tuesday
FULL-SCALE warfare will resume in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) if Ugandan-backed rebels do not halt their advance on a strategic town seen as the gateway to the capital Kinshasa, Namibia has warned.
Namibian President Sam Nujoma told reporters after a mini-summit with DRC President Laurent Kabila, Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe and Angolan President Eduardo dos Santos that their combined military forces were ready to launch a full-scale operation against the rebels, who are moving on the town of Mbandaka.
Mbandaka is the regional capital of Equateur Province, about 300km north of the capital Kinshasa, and is a strategic command position for the Kabila-aligned forces.
“We have determined that the Ugandan-backed rebels will be faced with vigorous determination,” Nujoma said, adding that “we will not allow Mbandaka to fall.”
Nujoma, who is current chairman of the 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC), spoke on behalf of Kabila, who was in attendance but said nothing.
Nujoma announced that the DRC leader had given the go-ahead for the deployment of 500 UN military observers as well as an armed contingent of 5_ 000 peacekeepers.
Nujoma accused the MLC of continued ceasefire violations, but insisted that the allied forces have been observing the shaky truce agreed at Lusaka.
He urged the rebels to lay down arms and join Kabila’s parliament to work out a new political dispensation in that vast but troubled central African country.
Mugabe vowed not to bend to political pressure from opposition parties in Zimbabwe to withdraw his forces from the DRC.
“The opposition is always loud, is always wild, is always demanding the politically impossible,” Mugabe said of demands by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change that Harare withdraw its troops immediately to avert economic collapse.
Dos Santos also reaffirmed his support for Kabila, warning at the same time that Angola will not allow Zambia to be used by the Angolan rebel movement Unita to launch further attacks inside Angola.