ZAIRE: U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UNITED NATIONS BILL RICHARDSON MEETS PRESIDENT OF DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO LAURENT KIBILA

Record ID: 337068

  • Title: ZAIRE: U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UNITED NATIONS BILL RICHARDSON MEETS PRESIDENT OF DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO LAURENT KIBILA
  • Date: 7th June 1997
  • Summary: KINSHASA, ZAIRE (JUNE 7, 1997)(AGENCY POOL) 1. MV CONGO FOREIGN MINISTER BIZIMA KARAHI WAITING OUTSIDE MEETING 0.05 2. MV U.S. ENVOY BILL RICHARDSON INTRODUCING MEMBERS OF HIS DELEGATION TO PRESIDENT LAURENT KABILA/ KABILA LAUGHS/ GUARD SITTING OUTSIDE (5 SHOTS) 0.35 3. MV RICHARDSON AND KABILA WALKING TOGETHER AFTER
  • Embargoed: 22nd June 1997 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: KINSHASA, ZAIRE
  • City:
  • Country: Congo, Democratic Republic of
  • Reuters ID: LVA7K8A64V6C9N6FIEA407JX24KK
  • Story Text: - INTRO: U.S. envoy Bill Richardson has said he has secured pledges from the President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to respect human rights and to assist a U.N. mission to examine evidence that his troops massacred Rwandan Hutu refugees.

    Richardson, Washington's ambassador to the United Nations, on Sunday (June 8) said Laurent Kabila had promised help in investigating the allegations, noting that the new ruler had agreed that an advance U.N. team would arrive in the Congo on June 20 and begin work on July 7.

    Kabila's takeover last month as president of Africa's third largest country, after a seven-month bush war, has been accompanied by reports that his soldiers have been systematically killing ethnic Hutu refugees in areas they control.

    Richardson was heading a team of over a dozen experts from different branches of the U.S. administration, to brief Kabila's government on international expectations after the overthrow of president of the former Zaire, Mobutu Sese Seko.

    Senior U.S. officials said they would be willing to offer Congo's new government military co-operation as an incentive to maintain human rights standards.

    Before leaving, Richardson met civic groups in the capital, where protests have erupted against Kabila's exclusion of popular opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi from his government, and the presence of Rwandan Tutsis in his army.

    Kabila on Saturday said he would soon set up a commission to begin work on elections planned for 1999. He did not say whether the body would be independent or whether political parties, currently banned, would be able to take part.


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