Nujoma says all foreign troops to be withdrawn from Congo

Namibian President Sam Nujoma said on Sunday that all foreign troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) would be withdrawn by the end of August this year, BBC monitoring reported, quoting the state news agency. The president made the announcement at a reception which he hosted in honour of 300 Namibian Defence Force (NDF) soldiers who returned from the DRC.

Some 150 soldiers arrived in Windhoek by air on Sunday, while the rest had arrived earlier at Grootfontein Military base in the north of the country, last week. “We, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) member states comprising of Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe decided to positively respond to the request of the legitimate government of the DRC under the leadership of the late President Laurent-Desire Kabila, when his country and people were threatened with death and destruction by the rebel forces supported by Rwanda and Uganda,” he noted.

Nujoma said that Rwanda and Uganda did not enter the DRC because of their security concerns, but in order to plunder that country’s natural resources, as indicated by the UN Security Council’s recent report on the country. The Namibian head of state reiterated that SADC Allied Forces in the DRC are committed to work with the UN peacekeeping force deployed there in order to bring about the realisation of the implementation of the Lusaka Cease-fire Agreement signed in Lusaka, Zambia some two years ago.