Jean-Pierre Bemba, former Congolese rebel turned vice-president under plans to bring peace to the Democratic Republic of Congo, said he had straightened out differences between him and DRC President Joseph Kabila. "I was able to smooth out divergences between the head of state and myself," he said after a three-hour meeting with Kabila.Bemba, head of the former rebel movement Congo Liberation Movement (MLC), is now one of four vice-presidents under Kabila under a peace accord ending five years of civil war in the vast central African state. He had earlier warned he would quit the government by January 31 if no progress was made in distributing top military and civilian jobs ahead of planned elections in June. "We were able to harmonize our viewpoints and divergences on all the questions necessary to advance the transition," Bemba said. "We have come to a good understanding, President Kabila and I."
But he declined to answer a question about the fate of former Public Works Minister Jose Endundo Bononge, also an MLC man, who was fired this month along with five others for alleged corruption. Bemba had at first insisted that Endundo remain in the government. Speaking in the Gabonese capital Libreville on Wednesday, Bemba accused Kabila of bad faith in the implementation of a 2002 accord signed by the warring parties to end the conflict in the former Zaire. "If progress is made by January 31, we will again support the transition. But we will not be complicit in the postponement of elections or elections on the cheap," he said.