DRC-UGANDA: President threatens to arrest rebel leader if he enters country

KAMPALA, 25 June 2004 (IRIN) - President Yoweri Museveni told diplomats in Kampala on Thursday that he would arrest the Congolese dissident leader, Gen Laurent Nkunda, if he entered Uganda, saying that his country strongly opposed any derailment of the peace and electoral processes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The president's spokesman, Onapito Ekomoloit, told IRIN that Museveni had made the threat during a meeting with the US ambassador and those of the EU member states, which had been called to review the security situation in northern Uganda, where the army is fighting the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). "Although it [the meeting] was addressing [the situation in] northern Uganda, the ambassadors asked the president to comment on the Congo question," Ekomoloit said. "He told them that there should not be renewed violence in the DRC and no introduction of new arms into that country." Museveni had been reacting to media reports earlier this week suggesting that Nkunda had entered Uganda and sought help in meetings with senior Ugandan officials, Ekomoloit said. "The president told the envoys that if General Nkunda dared to enter Uganda, he would be arrested, because he is violating the Lusaka peace accord which, he said, all stakeholders in the Congo peace process should stick to because it provides a framework for settling contentious issues. He suggested that factions in the highly volatile northeastern Ituri region should be included in the transitional government," Ekomoloit added. Italian Ambassador Maurizio Teucci, who attended the meeting, echoed the same message on Friday from the Ugandan leader. Teucci said Museveni had told the ambassadors that Uganda would not support anyone trying to bring arms into the DRC and that such individuals would be regarded as enemies of the Congolese people. Fighting broke out in eastern DRC on 26 May between dissident forces and loyalist government troops. The dissidents, led by Nkunda and Col Jules Mutebutsi, said they were fighting to protect Congolese Tutsis, known as the Banyamulenge, from atrocities allegedly perpetrated by a military commander assigned to the region by the transitional government in Kinshasa. Mutebutsi subsequently fled from the town of Kamanyola to Rwanda along with 300 fighters.