Global Policy Forum

Reversing an earlier presidential statement, Uganda said it would continue to participate in a peace process designed to end Congo's 2 1/2-year civil war and keep troops in the central African country.

President Yoweri Museveni, angered by a U.N. report that accused his country of participating in the plunder of Congo's natural resources, said late last month Uganda would withdraw from the Lusaka Accords and pull its soldiers out of Congo. The Cabinet, however, has resolved to continue the country's participation in the Congo peace process, Foreign Minister Eria Kategaya said in a statement obtained on Tuesday.

Most Ugandan troops will be pulled out of Congo, but some soldiers will remain in a buffer zone along some parts of the border to prevent Ugandan rebel attacks from Congolese territory until Uganda's security is assured, the May 7 statement said. Uganda has promised to pull all of its troops from Congo once there is no longer a threat of rebel attack.

The United Nations is helping broker an end to the war in Congo, which now involves five foreign armies and has left the Congolese government holding just 40 percent of a country the size of Western Europe. Aid workers say the conflict is indirectly responsible for the deaths of at least 1 million Congolese and the displacement of 2 million more. On April 16 the United Nations released a report that implicated Uganda and Rwanda in the alleged plundering of Congo's vast resources. The report called for sanctions against the two countries and the prosecution of its leaders for economic crimes.

Museveni said his decision to withdraw from the Lusaka agreement was subject to debate among his Cabinet and senior military officers. ``The government has decided that Uganda remains a party to the Lusaka peace agreement and arrangements under it, the full implementation of which remains the only viable solution to the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo,'' Kategaya said.

Uganda and Rwanda both sent troops into Congo in 1998 to back Congolese rebels seeking to overthrow former President Laurent Kabila. Both countries were also acting to secure their borders from attacks by Rwandan and Ugandan rebels operating from within Congo. Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia sent in troops to support Congo's government.