Portugal is waiting for formal Congolese government approval to receive ex-warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba, accused of treason after his militia fought government forces last month, the Portuguese ambassador said on Sunday.
Bemba, whose personal guard fought a two-day battle in the Congolese capital Kinshasa in March after refusing to disarm, had been expected to leave for Lisbon this weekend.
Holed up in the South African embassy since the fighting, he has asked to travel to Portugal with his family to receive medical treatment for a leg he fractured in December.
The Kinshasa clashes, in which up to 600 people were reported killed, dented international hopes for a consolidation of democracy in the Democratic Republic of Congo after last year’s landmark elections won by incumbent President Joseph Kabila.
Portugal’s ambassador in Kinshasa, Alfredo Duarte Costa, told Reuters that while Bemba had accepted Lisbon’s terms for being allowed to travel to the Iberian country, the Congolese government had still not agreed to the plan in writing.
”We have a verbal agreement with [National Assembly President] Vital Kamerhe. But as long as we don’t have it in writing, he can’t leave,” Costa said.
Portugal has ruled out asylum for Bemba and his family and Costa said they would be treated as tourists on 90-day visas.
After Bemba’s fighters were routed, Kabila’s government ordered his arrest for treason for trying to start an uprising.
The DRC’s Information Minister Toussaint Tshilombo said the government was still weighing whether to let Bemba leave.
”We are in the process of analysing. As soon as the government takes a decision, it will make it public,” he told Reuters. ”A verbal agreement is just a verbal agreement. Vital Kamerhe is just the president of the National Assembly.”
Diplomats said there appeared to be disagreements in Kabila’s government about whether Bemba, who led a rebel group in the DRC’s 1998 to 2003 war and served as Vice-President in the transition to elections, should be allowed to go abroad.
Costa said he received a letter on Friday from Bemba agreeing to conditions imposed by the Portuguese government.
”Under these, Mr Bemba will not pursue political activities while in the national territory of Portugal,” he said.
Since fracturing his leg in an accident in December, Bemba has previously travelled to Portugal for medical treatment. He is a regular visitor and has owned a house there since 1987.
Last month’s fighting was the worst in Kinshasa since the DRC’s first free elections in over 40 years, aimed at restoring peace to the mineral-rich central African state.
Soldiers loyal to Kabila and Bemba had fought on several occasions in Kinshasa during last year’s elections in clashes which killed at least 30 people and wounded many more. – Reuters