Former president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Joseph Kabila has denied allegations made by the neighbouring country of Uganda that he provided a haven for a rebel organisation and allowed it grow and plunder mineral resources.
Kabila served as president of Congo from 2001 to 2019, when Felix Tshisekedi took over.
Yoweri Museveni, the president of Uganda, claimed last week that Kabila had permitted the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), which has sworn allegiance to the Islamic State (IS), to establish sizable camps as well as mine gold and sell lumber, among other economic pursuits.
“The gratuitous false accusations of President Museveni who is one of the main destabilisers in the region are simply ridiculous and aim to distract the Congolese people and divide them,” Kabila said in a statement to Reuters.
The ADF was a Ugandan rebel organisation that launched operations in the western Ugandan province of Rwenzori before it was founded in 1996.
The rebels were eventually driven out and destroyed, but some of their survivors escaped and took refuge in the eastern Congo jungles after crossing the border.
The group’s fighters often conduct assassinations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo against both civilian and military targets. They also sporadically launch attacks in Uganda.
ADF militants invaded Uganda this month, seized a secondary school, and slaughtered 42 people—mostly students—in one of the bloodiest massacres ever. Some were killed by burning.
In his statement, Kabila said his government had recognised the ADF as a terrorist organisation and kept the international community including the United Nations well informed “on the abuses perpetrated by the ADF and the need to intervene”.
“These international organisations rejected this qualification of the Congolese government of the word ‘terrorist’. It is past time that the facts have proven that Joseph Kabila was right and that it was necessary to intervene urgently.”
