Holbrooke warns foreign armies not to take offensive

US Ambassador to the UN, Richard Holbrooke, on Wednesday told foreign armies not to take advantage of the reported death of DRC President Laurent-Desire Kabila. Holbrooke, in his address to African ambassadors, said that foreigners had no role in the internal political process, Reuters reported. “It is essential that the foreign forces who have invaded and occupy large parts of the Congo halt their offensive action,” Holbrooke noted. “They should not seek to take advantage of the events in Kinshasa to expand their presence. They should not play a role in the internal political process in Kinshasa,” he said. “The reported death of President Kabila may change the political landscape - indeed it will change the political landscape - but it will not alter the underlying reality,” Holbrooke said. The UN has been trying for more than a year to send a 5,537-member observer mission to the DRC to monitor a ceasefire agreement which was negotiated in Lusaka, Zambia in June 1999. The agreement called for the withdrawal of all foreign troops. The deployment has not taken place as planned, because of continued fighting. Holbrooke said that every signatory to the agreement had violated it and all parties “feared to reopen the pact because of concerns it might never be put back together again”. “Either the Lusaka agreement has to be implemented or it has to be restructured,” Holbrooke said, adding that whoever rules in Kinshasa has to undertake a dialogue with both the rebels and the unarmed opposition, which Kabila had delayed.