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Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 12:14:16 -0800 (PST)
From: Prince Madiba <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Shots Fired Near Congo Presidential Palace (fwd)
Shots Fired Near Congo Presidential Palace
Reuters
Jan 16 2001 1:07PM
KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of Congo (Reuters) - Shots were fired Tuesday near the palace of the Democratic Republic of Congo's President Laurent Kabila, diplomats said, and a presidential aide ordered the army to block Kinshasa's main airport and the river border.
A senior intelligence source in Uganda, which along with Rwanda supports Congolese rebels who have been fighting to overthrow Kabila since August 1998, said the president had been killed in a coup attempt in the capital Kinshasa.
"He has died. He was shot by unknown people ... earlier today ... I am 101 percent sure he is dead," the senior intelligence source in Kampala told Reuters by telephone, saying his information came from intelligence sources in Kinshasa.
"The situation now is very unclear," he said, adding that he did not know who was in control of the city.
That report could not be immediately confirmed.
Earlier, Kabila's personal chief of staff read a message on state television saying the airport and river border had been closed.
"I am asking the commander in charge to block the airport and to block our border (with neighboring Congo Republic) along the River Congo," Colonel Edy Kapend said.
"It is forbidden to use arms without prior order," he added.
Civilians were asked to remain calm.
In Brussels, a Belgian Foreign Ministry spokesman said: "Our ambassador reported shots being fired around the palace."
Michel Malherbe told Reuters the ambassador reported that telephone lines had been cut in the capital Kinshasa.
Malherbe said the ambassador reported that television and radio broadcasts had also been interrupted.
Attempts to end a war in the former Zaire, Africa's third largest country, have been shredded by renewed fighting, and analysts fear the conflict will escalate as warring sides jostle for ground and power.
Eighteen months after a peace accord was signed in the Zambian capital Lusaka, there is still no end in sight to the Democratic Republic of the Congo's 29-month-long war.
Up to two million people have been displaced by the fighting and a quarter of a million have fled to neighboring countries as refugees, exporting with them Congo's insecurity problems.
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