SPLA Masses 10,000 near Congo Border
Kampala (New Vision, September 16, 1998) - Press reports yesterday said the The Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA) had moved more than 10,000 forces to the Sudan-Congo border to stop the Sudan government establishing a base on the Congo side. The border area is controlled by the SPLA.
Justin Yaac-Arop, SPLA representative in East Africa, declined to comment on reports that the SPLA was grouping forces along the Sudan-Congo border. "I can't say anything about that. That is a military strategy, there is nobody who advertises where he is going. But Sudan is ferrying many things to eastern Congo. Three or four times a day the Antonov planes fly over Yei going to the East," he said.
Reports said the SPLA, led by Col. Garang, was insulating the border for fear Sudan would establish a base in Congo.
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Khartoum says no Sudanese soldiers in D.R. Congo
CAIRO, Sept 17 (AFP) - The Sudanese foreign minister flatly denied here Wednesday night claims that Sudan had sent soldiers to aid government forces in rebellion-torn Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Mustafa Osman Ismail, speaking on the sidelines of a meeting of Arab foreign ministers, said there was "not a single soldier" from Sudan in the DRC where rebels claimed Tuesday that the Khartoum government had flown in 2,000 soldiers to help President Laurent Kabila.
"Sudan does not have a single soldier in the DRC," he said, adding: "What is certain is that we are giving political support to the Kabila regime recognised by the United Nations". Ismail however accused "forces of (southern) Sudanese rebels of fighting on the side of the rebels in the DRC" but he did not elaborate.
Earlier, Ismail told journalists that "when Kabila came to power, he was involved in anti-Sudanese activities in the south of the country with the aid of other regional states like Eritrea and Uganda." "Now the magic has turned against the magician and Kabila finds itself threatened by Uganda, our position is that Kabila is the president of the DRC and that other countries should not intervene to change the current legitimate regime in the DRC," he said.
"If other countries think they have a right to intervene in the affairs of another state to change the regime there, it would be a serious precedent and it would be in contradiction with all the accords on good neighbourly relations and with the charter of the United Nations and of the Organisation of African Unity," he said.
Rebel political coordinator Lundu Bululu late Tuesday said Sudanese Ilyushin planes had flown soldiers to the big Congolese armed forcesadvance base at Kindu, the capital of Maniema province less than 150 kilometres (95 miles) from the rebel front lines in the eastern DRC. The rebels said the soldiers included an unspecified number of men who had served in the army of former Zairean dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, whom Kabila ousted in May last year.
In Kinshasa, the Congolese army headquarters on Wednesday "categorically denied" that Sudan had sent troops to fight in support of Kabila. "The general staff of the Congolese Armed Forces (FAC) denies in the most categorical fashion the presence of Sudanese troops in DRC," an official statement read on television said.
Angola, Zimbabwe and Nambia have sent troops to support Kabila who charges that the mainly Tutsi rebels are backed by Rwanda and Uganda. |
