Uganda backs Bemba accord

KAMPALA, Saturday - Ugandan Defence Minister Amama Mbabazi on Thursday denied that Kampala has rejected a peace deal struck between the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Ugandan-backed rebels. “Uganda is not opposed to any parties in the ongoing Congolese dialogue coming together and agreeing on what they want for the future of the DRC,” Mbabazi told AFP by telephone. Commenting on a deal signed Wednesday in South Africa between Kinshasa and the rebel Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC), Mbabazi said what rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba and Kinshasa should do now is “try to sell their deal to the plenary of the dialogue so that it can come out as a deal for all.” “Uganda’s position is that anything that brings together all parties in the Congolese dialogue is good,” Mbabazi said. Mbabazi also called on the Rwandan-backed Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD) “to give concrete reasons why they are rejecting the deal between Kinshasa and Bemba.” An earlier statement by presidential office deputy spokesman Onapito Ekomoloit appeared to reject the deal, under which DRC President Joseph Kabila would remain head of state and the army while Bemba would be named prime minister in a transitional government. Ekmoloit told AFP Uganda was bound by the Lusaka peace accords, signed in 1999, and “any deal outside the accord’s framework was not good enough.”