Text:
http://www.nando.net/newsroom/ntn/world/113098/world2_21850.html
Back home, Kabila wants foreign
forces out of Congo
Copyright © 1998 Nando Media
Copyright © 1998 Reuters News Service
Read Africa News Online
KINSHASA (November 30, 1998 3:04 p.m. EST
http://www.nandotimes.com) - President Laurent Kabila returned to the Democratic Republic of the Congo on Monday, saying any truce in the conflict there should be linked to a withdrawal of foreign forces.
Kabila, who held out hope for a cease-fire after attending a Franco-African summit in Paris, said Kinshasa would send a large delegation to follow-up talks planned for Zambia around December 8.
But the absence of Congolese rebels from the Paris summit and conflicting statements from major players have raised doubts about prospects for any truce in the war, now almost four months old.
Kabila, who refuses to recognize the rebels, accuses his former allies Uganda and Rwanda of fomenting the revolt and invading in support of those who took up arms against him on Aug. 2.
"The cease-fire must be linked with the withdrawal of the foreign forces," he told state radio on arrival in Kinshasa.
Kabila, who has previously insisted on a Rwandan and Ugandan withdrawal from the former Zaire before any cease-fire talks, did not elaborate.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and French President Jacques Chirac said in Paris on Saturday that leaders of nations involved in the conflict had promised to stop fighting.
Kabila, who stopped off in Libya on his way home from Paris, said after the summit that a preliminary agreement would be signed in Lusaka around Dec. 8 and a full agreement would be worked out at a Dec. 17-18 African summit in Burkina Faso.
The conflict has sucked in troops from seven nations.
Zimbabwe, Angola, Chad and Namibia all sent troops to help Kabila against the rebels, who are backed by Rwanda and Uganda.
The rebels failed in a bid to take Kinshasa in August but they control much of the east of the Congo.
Libya and Sudan, rumored to be backing Kabila in the conflict, deny sending him help.
Even without the involvement of the rebels, prospects for a cease-fire look slim.
State radio and television in Kinshasa have made no specific mention of a cease -fire deal as such being struck.
South African Deputy President Thabo Mbeki and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said they saw little new in Paris.
Congo rebel political leader Wamba dia Wamba said on Sunday he did not dismiss a cease-fire deal out of hand, but added that the rebels would fight on since their frontline military positions were under constant threat of attack.
"We have always been ready for negotiations ... but deals that exclude us won't be effective because they won't be implemented," he told Reuters in an interview by satellite telephone, speaking from Bunia in northeastern Congo.
A senior Rwandan official told BBC radio on Sunday that all the different leaders did in Paris was to reaffirm previously stated positions. "It's not worth anything," he said. "It's a wish list."
Libya's television said Kabila briefed Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi on the conflict in the Congo and discussed wider African issues, but gave no details from their discussions.
Gambia's president, Yahya Jammeh, was also in Libya and took part in the talks. He too attended the Paris summit.
By STEPHANIE WOLTERS, Reuters