A SENIOR DRC official has levelled allegations that a foreign power was behind last week’s assassination of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) president Laurent Kabila, the Togolese president’s office said.
DRC envoy Constantin Nono Lutula made the statement while visiting Togo for a meeting with Togolese President Gnassingbe Eyadema, who is also acting president of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU).
A statement from Eyadema’s office quoted Lutula as having said: “Certain elements that we have discovered following preliminary interrogations prove that a foreign hand, an enemy hand, knowingly prepared the assassination of president Laurent Desire Kabila.”
Although Lutula would not say which country had been involved, he said a committee of inquiry was working on the affair and would release its findings at the appropriate time.
Lutula is a special advisor to Kabila’s son, General Joseph Kabila, who has been proclaimed the new president by the country’s provisional parliament.
His appointment is not likely to bring peace to the vast central African country, however. General Kabila vowed, before his father’s death, to rout rebel forces from the east of the country in an interview broadcast this week in Zimbabwe.
“Our forces are ready to fight until all the forces are out, until our country is free. Our forces are 100% ready,” Kabila said in the interview.
The DRC’s two-and-a-half year war has pitted rebels backed up by Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi against government troops supported by Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola.
“What we are saying is that the forces that should withdraw are the invading forces,” Kabila said. “As long as the enemy stays there, we will continue to fight until he gets out of our territory.”
The war has split the mineral-rich country in half and the front line, more than 2 000km long, crosses rainforests and plains as it zigzags from the northwest to the southeast. – AFP