Return of UPDF will not be welcomed, Kinshasa warns Kampala

The government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) will neither authorise joint patrols with nor grant a military corridor to the Ugandan army for pursuit of Ugandan rebels based in northeastern Congo, Mulegwa Zihindula, spokesman of DRC President Joseph Kabila, said on Thursday. "If the Ugandan army returns to our territory, we will consider this an act of aggression and will take the necessary action," Mulegwa said at a news conference in the Congolese capital, Kinshasa. He was responding to a question about the visit of Maj-Gen Aronda Nyakairima, chief of staff of the Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF), who met with Kabila on Wednesday. "I am going for this meeting because the issue of PRA in Congo is no longer a secret. I hope these issues are resolved," Nyakairima was quoted as telling the Uganda government-owned newspaper, The New Vision, on Tuesday. On 23 October, Mbusa Nyamwisi, minister for regional cooperation in the DRC's two-year transitional government, confirmed reports of the presence of Ugandan rebel training camps in his country's northeastern North Kivu Province, in the region between Beni and Kasindi. "These camps exist and it is possible that there are other such camps that have not been identified, because these armed groups are located in the forest, sometimes in very small camps," Nyamwisi told IRIN at the time. Nyakairima's visit to the DRC follows a meeting held last week in Washington, D.C., between Kabila and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. "President Kabila asked President Museveni to send the Ugandan army chief of staff [to Kinshasa] to discuss the presence of Ugandan armed groups said to be regrouping in northeastern DRC, after [Museveni] complained to Kabila about this," Mulegwa said. Mulegwa added that Nyakairima's visit was a sign of improving relations between the two countries. Ugandan Defence Minister Amama Mbabazi also visited Kinshasa last week to discuss the matter. Nyakairima's visit comes as the International Court of Justice, the principal judicial organ of the UN, postponed hearings that had been scheduled to open on Monday in the case concerning "Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Uganda)". In a letter dated 5 November, the DRC requested that the case be adjourned until April 2004 "in order to enable the diplomatic negotiations engaged by the parties to be conducted in an atmosphere of calm". Following nearly five years of openly supporting armed rebellions in the DRC, the last of the UPDF withdrew from the DRC in May 2003, following an accord signed on 9 September 2002 in Luanda, the capital of Angola.