Libya firmly denied on Saturday that its troops have entered the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in support of rebel groups, following a protest by the DRC to the UN Security Council.
”What was alleged by the Congolese ambassador to the UN is
without foundation and is not based on any truth,” said African Unity Minister Ali Abdel Salam Triki, quoted by the state Jana news agency.
He said his country ”has no military presence in this region”.
The DRC issued an urgent letter to the Security Council on Friday asking it to condemn Libya’s action and ”to demand the immediate withdrawal of its troops from the territory of the DRC”.
It did not specify how many Libyans were in the DRC, but said that ”for more than a month, the territory occupied by the Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC) has been the scene of continuous movement by Antonov heavy lifter aircraft”.
MLC on Saturday also denied that it had received arms from Libya.
”It is absolutely false”, MLC leader Jean-Pierre Bemba said from Kigali by telephone from the northwest town of Gbadolite.
He said the UN observer mission in DRC ”is present in Gbadolite and in Zongo, and they can bear witness that there are no Libyan nationals there,” he said, charging the allegations were a ”manoeuvre” by Kinshasa.
The MLC has the support of Uganda, which recently pulled its own forces out of the DRC, scene of the most complex conflict in Africa.
In Pretoria on Thursday, the DRC’s ambassador to South Africa, Bene M’Poko, said the Libyans had sent 14 tanks by way of Uganda into northern parts of the DRC bordering on the Central African Republic.
Libya and the MLC intervened on the side of CAR President
Ange-Felix Patasse after an attempted coup against him in October by renegade army chief Francois Bozize. – Sapa-AFP