Mumengi accuses Uganda of troop reinforcements

DRC government spokesman Didier Mumengi on Monday accused Uganda of reinforcing troops, war and heavy materials in Gbadolite, Basankusu and Gemena. “We denounce this will to perpetuate the war in the DRC,” Mumengi was quoted by Gabonese Africa No 1 radio as saying. “We denounce the Kampala government’s warmongering attitude,” he said. “Each time [Ugandan] President Museveni announces the withdrawal of Ugandan troops from the DRC, he actually reinforces the troops and war materials in the DRC because he is basically obsessed with the diamonds,” he added. Mumengi warned that the situation was “heating up” on the western front and called on the international community to “bear witness to what was going on”.

Bemba dismissed Mumengi’s claims as a “lie”. “It is the government which has been sending its troops and so we had no option but to prepare ourselves,” he told IRIN. He noted that during the recent Lusaka summit, he asked Kabila to withdraw his troops from Imese according to the Kampala disengagement plan, “but he said ‘no’ in front of all the heads of state and called the Kampala plan a ‘false document’”.