The Democratic Republic of Congo ( DRC) has asked for "more time" to vigorously deal with rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) who are hiding in it's jungles.
Daily Monitor Sunday quoted Mbusa Nyamwisi, DRC's Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, as saying that Kinshasa needed time to sort out the brutal rebel group that is camped in Garamba forest in eastern DRC.
"Those people (LRA) are creating problems everywhere," Nyamwisi told journalists at Entebbe Airport. "They are killing Congolese and the same might be happening to Sudan in terms of insecurity."
"Give us time to work on them (LRA) and we give you the result, " he said. "There is nothing we can do without improving relations between the two countries. We have common resources and that shows that we are condemned to work together. We do not have any choice. "
Nyamwisi's comments come just days after Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni's criticism of Kinshasa and United Nations peacekeepers for allowing the LRA free stay in the Garamba jungles.
Nyamwisi said he had come to reciprocate last week's visit by his Ugandan counterpart Sam Kuteesa to Kinshasa where he held talks with President Joseph Kabila on how to find a peaceful solution to the recent escalation of border conflict over Bukwanzi Island in Lake Albert.
"My visit is to put together those understandings so that it might help us to move forward and there is need for these exchanges," Nyamwisi said.
Tensions between the two countries have escalated at the end of July when four Ugandan soldiers patrolling Lake Albert were captured by the Congolese government troops, who accused them of crossing into the DRC territory.
Earlier this month, Congolese troops attacked an oil barge belonging to Canadian-based Heritage Oil near the tiny Rukwanzi Island, killing a British oil worker.
Shortly after this attack, unknown gunmen from DRC crossed into Uganda and attacked the border town of Butogota in Kanungu District, 450 km southwest of Kampala, killing three people and seriously injuring one.
Uganda sent troops into the DRC in 1998 to pursue the rebels of the Allied Democratic Forces, but the army was later involved in the fighting between factional forces and the plundering of the country's rich national resources.
Source: Xinhua
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