Kinshasa denounces rebel call for sanctions

After the Kabale meeting, Ilunga, Wamba and Bemba also called for the UN and international community to impose economic sanctions on the government of President Laurent-Desire Kabila, rather than calling him to address the UN Security Council at the end of this month. “Kabila is behaving the way he is because there are no international sanctions,” the Uganda ‘New Vision’ quoted Wamba as saying on Sunday. DRC Information Minister Didier Mumengi rapidly denounced the appeal for sanctions as “intolerable, unacceptable and irresponsible,” Gabonese ‘Africa No 1’ radio reported. “Bemba wants to make the whole world believe it is the government which kicked off the hostilities in Equateur Province, whereas at the time of the signing of the Lusaka agreement, the Ugandans and Jean-Pierre Bemba were not occupying the positions they are claiming today,” Mumengi said, adding that they should return to those agreed positions.