Kabila’s opponents stress support for Lusaka accord

Reaction from Congolese President Laurent-Desire Kabila’s opponents in the DRC conflict to the unfolding events in the capital Kinshasa has been muted. Rwanda said it was “too early to decide what to do”, although the presidential adviser on military issues Lieutenant Colonel Charles Kayonga said if Kabila was dead, his successor must abide by the Lusaka peace accord. But diplomatic sources told IRIN that Zimbabwe had already approached Rwanda to decide on the “next steps”. Kayonga’s sentiments were echoed by Ugandan diplomats who told IRIN that “whatever comes out of the Congo situation, the main issue is to work towards implementation of the Lusaka accord”. The diplomats added that Uganda condemned any assassination as a means of changing government. The three Congolese rebel groups also called for moving ahead with the Lusaka agreement, signed by all parties to the conflict in 1999 and whose implementation Kabila had tried to block, particularly the convocation of an inter-Congolese dialogue. Kabila repeatedly said he did not trust the facilitator of the dialogue, former Botswana president Ketumile Masire. A statement from Masire’s office expressed regret over the reported assassination of Kabila on Tuesday and said this illustrated the need to “start a new chapter in the politics of the Congo”. “Whatever the nature of the new regime in Kinshasa, whatever has gone before, I would like to appeal to the Congolese who signed the Lusaka agreement and to the neighbouring countries who have troops in Congo, to abandon the illusion that warfare or murder can offer any longterm solution,” the statement said. Rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba of the Mouvement de liberation du Congo (MLC) said that if the reported coup had succeeded, he would order a unilateral ceasefire and call for agreement on implementation of the Lusaka agreement. A spokesman for the other main rebel movement, the Goma-based Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD), said the group did not support murder as a means of gaining power. “Consequently, the RCD does not recognise the coup leaders now in power in the DRC,” said spokesman Jean-Pierre Lola Kisanga on Wednesday. He also stressed that the Lusaka peace accord was the only way forward. Guy Verhofstadt, the prime minister of the former colonial power, Belgium, reiterated that the situation in Kinshasa on Wednesday was calm, but that Brussels had decided to send two security teams to Libreville in neighbouring Gabon, should repatriation become necessary. “At this stage, the Belgians in DRC are not anxious,” he said. There are some 2,500 Belgians in the DRC, 2,300 of them in Kinshasa. Furthermore, Belgian officials said that no real leadership had yet emerged in Kinshasa. They added that several people had been killed in the shooting incident around Kabila’s residence on Tuesday.