President Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Tuesday rejected an offer of South African assistance in peace-making from two government ministers who paid him a brief visit, officials said in Kinshasa.
South African Justice Minister Penuell Maduna and Labour Minister Shepherd Mdladlana came to the DRC capital with a top legal aide to President Thabo Mbeki and a message that South Africa wished to help the DRC people find lasting peace, sources told AFP.
However, while Kabila told them the country was ”at war and as such does not refuse help from friendly countries,” he also urged South Africa ”to be objective and remain impartial,” an informed source said.
Since Kabila’s government and a Ugandan-backed rebel group on April 17 signed a peace pact on the sidelines of a marathon DRC peace conference hosted by South Africa, a planned visit to Kinshasa by Mbeki has been announced and cancelled several times.
On Saturday, an exiled DRC opposition leader said Mbeki’s mediation in the DRC conflict would be inappropriate because of the ”ties his ANC (African National Congress) party has with Rwanda, the main aggressor in the DRC.”
Rwanda backs the rebel Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), which was not a party to the accord signed in Sun City, South Africa, and holds much of the eastern third of the vast central African country.
Asked by journalists here about South African-made weapons allegedly going to the RCD, Maduna on Tuesday said his country did not sell arms to the RCD or rebel groups ”but to states”.
He declined, however, to answer a question about arms sales to Rwanda. – Sapa-AFP