Citation
KINSHASA, Sept 23 (AFP) - President Laurent Kabila accused unidentified world leaders on Tuesday of using the cover of humanitarian missions in the Democratic Republic of Congo to plot against his country.
"Our country has been and continues to be the victim of plots by world powers under the camouflage of humanitarian assistance," he told delegates at a central African telecommunications conference here.
He did not name the countries in question, but his remarks were seen as a swipe at a UN mission currently in the country to investigate allegations of massacres of Rwandan refugees by his former rebels.
Almost a month to the day after arriving in the former Zaire, the UN team is still kicking its heels in Kinshasa because it has been refused permission to go where it wants.
"Our nation has shown and will continue to show that it prefers to be poor and free than rich and enslaved," Kabila said, adding an appeal for "African solidarity."
"The peoples of central Africa must refind the values of work, fraternity, and freedom" so they can develop their countries on their own and "away from the diktats of foreign powers."
Kabila took power in the Democratic Republic of Congo in May after ousting late Zairean president Mobutu Sese Seko following a seven-month civil war.
A previous UN rights investigator, Roberto Garreton, has said he found evidence in the former Zaire of the massacre of Hutu refugees who escaped Rwanda's civil war of 1994 but were slaughtered by Kabila's rebel alliance.
During their campaign, the rebels accused armed Hutu former soldiers and extremist militiamen among the refugees from Rwanda of fighting them, while the authorities then in Kinshasa accused the Tutsi-dominated regime in Kigali, as well as Uganda, of backing Kabila.
The new DRC authorities have said they are open to a UN investigation, but have on several occasions changed the terms. They also assert that the mission can only go to sites it wants to investigate given sufficient protection for its members, which requires planning, according to Kinshasa.
jg/km/nb
