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Source App: [Congo Rebel in Talks With Gadhafi - Netscape]

Congo Rebel in Talks With Gadhafi

By Hrvoje Hranjski
Associated Press Writer
Monday, December 21, 1998; 7:50 p.m. EST

KIGALI, Rwanda (AP) -- The leader of Congo's rebels fighting to oust President Laurent Kabila held talks Monday with Libyan leader
Moammar Gadhafi, the rebels' first such meeting with Kabila's major ally.

Ernest Wamba dia Wamba, leader of the Congolese Democratic Coalition, said after the two-hour meeting in the Libyan capital Tripoli that Gadhafi was trying to find an end to the civil war, but gave no details.

``Gadhafi is trying to see how he could make it possible for war to end,'' Wamba told The Associated Press from Tripoli. ``Kabila has been here
before us, but it is good that we are talking together now.''

Gadhafi has backed Kabila in a civil war that has drawn in Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia and Chad on the government side and Rwanda and
Uganda on the rebel side.

The rebels apparently are hoping to persuade Gadhafi to withdraw his financial backing for Chadian troops fighting alongside the Congo
government and put pressure on Kabila to negotiate.

Chadian President Idriss Deby also flew to Tripoli Monday for talks with Gadhafi, the Libyan news agency Jana reported.

Kabila has refused to enter negotiations with the rebel coalition of ethnic Congolese Tutsis, disaffected soldiers and opposition politicians. He insists that rebel supporters Rwanda and Uganda withdraw their troops.

Since the beginning of the year, Gadhafi has stepped up efforts to become a major player in Africa. He succeeded in convincing the OAU to
denounce the U.N. ban on air travel imposed on Libya for his refusal to hand over two suspects in the bombing of a Pan Am airliner a decade ago over Lockerbie, Scotland.

© Copyright 1998 The Associated Press

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