Kabila-Bemba accord a "consecration of trickery" - UDPS

"The Kabila-Bemba agreement has blocked the dynamic towards a comprehensive and inclusive agreement among all parties present in Sun City [South Africa]. It was intended to make the inter-Congolese dialogue (ICD) fail. It worsens the crisis instead of solving it," Francois Tshipamba Mpuila, representative in Belgium of the Congolese opposition UDPS (Union pour la democratie et le progres social) said during a press conference in Brussels on Tuesday.

It was held under the umbrella of the Alliance pour la sauvegarde du dialogue intercongolais (ASD), a coalition of opponents to the Sun City agreement, including political parties like the UDPS of Etienne Tshisekedi and the armed opposition of the Rwandan-backed rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD-Goma).

"This satanic agreement is a coup against the Lusaka agreement, against the inter-Congolese dialogue and its rules," ASD said in a statement, accusing the "Kabila-Bemba couple" to have corrupted signatories by paying them an amount of US $1,000, by promising ministerial positions and by intimidating them with claims of support from France and Belgium. ASD also accused the two camps of showing "disrespect" towards South African President Thabo Mbeki by refusing to discuss seriously his second draft document.

"We want a continuation of the ICD [...] and to reach a consensus on the two [unresolved] points of the [reorganisation of the] army and the implementation of transitional government institutions," Tshipamba emphasised, "otherwise we will build on sand."

"They are already fighting among themselves in Kinshasa!" he added.

Another ASD speaker stressed that "the co-existence of two armies in Kinshasa [those allied to Kabila and to Bemba] will lead to a new war". All ASD representatives denied that their coalition was simply the response of people frustrated by not getting the positions they sought.

The ASD has asked the European Union and the Congolese people to reject the "trickery" of the Sun City agreement and to force the Kinshasa government of DRC President Joseph Kabila and Jean-Pierre Bemba's Mouvement de liberation du Congo (MLC) to resume all-inclusive negotiations.