Former president wants to go home

The former president of the Central African Republic (CAR), Andre Kolingba, is ready to go home from exile in Uganda, an official of his political party said on Monday. The vice-chairman of Kolingba's Rassemblement democratique centrafricain (RDC), Louis Pierre Gamba, told IRIN that Kolingba wished to cooperate with the new administration of President Francois Bozize. "He is determined to return home, but what still blocks him is the issue of amnesty," Gamba said. Kolingba, president of the CAR from 1981 to 1993, fled to the Ugandan capital, Kampala, following his unsuccessful attempt to regain power through a coup on 28 May 2001. Kolingba and his three sons were sentenced to death in absentia by CAR's criminal court in August 2002, in connection with the failed coup attempt against the then president, Ange-Felix Patasse. Six hundred other politicians, soldiers and businessmen, mostly members of Kolingba's Yakoma ethnic group, were also sentenced in connection with the attempt, with 21 of them receiving the death sentence. The RDC was suspended indefinitely, and many Yakomas fled to the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of Congo. Gamba told IRIN that Bozize had been contacted about the issue, and had been given, at his request, Kolingba's telephone number. In a communique issued on Wednesday, the RDC welcomed the change of power in the CAR and invited its members to place themselves at the new president's disposal. "He [Kolingba] has asked us to support Bozize," Gamba said. Meanwhile, a former prime minister and chairman of the Parti pour l'unite nationale, Jean-Paul Ngoupande, announced on Monday on the Gabonese private broadcaster, Africa No.1 Radio, that he would return to the CAR from Paris, France, on Saturday.