Rwanda expresses lack of confidence in Kabila

The Rwandan government on Wednesday said that it would not trust DRC’s President Joseph Kabila until he promised to stop backing the insurgents. “No confidence was built in Lusaka between the two presidents,” Reuters quoted Kagame’s spokesman Emmanuel Ndahiro as saying in reaction to a recent meeting between Kagame and Kabila in margins of the OAU meeting in Lusaka. The Lusaka encounter between the presidents was, according to Ndahiro, the third meeting following previous ones in February and March. “If Joseph Kabila stops supporting the Interahamwe militia, and helps in disarming them, then he can be trusted,” he said. He welcomed the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s facilitation of the meeting but added that there was “no tangible result from it”. The two presidents had discussed disarmament and the proposed demilitarisation of Kisangani town, northeastern DRC. Ndahiro said Kagame continued to oppose Kisangani’s demilitarisation because the withdrawal of the rebels of the Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD-Goma) would hand the town to Kabila. Disarmament is intended to make the town a neutral place that can serve as a base for the UN mission in the DRC (MONUC) and for negotiations on a final political settlement, Reuters said. Kabila has previously said that only his government can assure security after the withdrawal of foreign forces from Congo.