' CONGOLESE
REPUDIATE SLANDER OF HOLDEN ROBERTO
According to a March 26 press release issued in Algiers by the Revolutionary Government of Angola in Exile [GRAE], headed by Holden Roberto, the Congolese National Liberation Council LonL] has repudiated .a January 13 communiqué issued in its name which .accused Holden Roberto "of putting his soldiers in the service of the Léopoldville killers in order to combat the patriotic forces, particularly in the province of Kwilu."
The January 13 communiqué echoed an attack against Holden Roberto levelled in Pravda December 16, 1964, but went much further in citing alleged incidents.
These accusations were indignantly denied by representatives of the GRAE who sought to answer them in detail. See World Outlook March 5.] They claimed that the January 13 communiqué was put out by a few members of the CNL living in Brazzaville and that Christophe Gbenyé, head of the Revolutionary Congolese Government, had declared that he did not know anything about it.
The GRAE now states in its March 26 press release that in an interview in Cairo, Davidson Bocheley, chairman of the CNL tendency with headquarters in Brazzaville, told GRAE representative Leopoldo das Chagas Trovoada that his movement was not responsible for the declarations made in the communiqué in question,
- "In addition, Mr. Bocheley told the GRAE representative that the Congolese revolutionaries had at_last understood the Angolan question,” the declaration continues, “and he charged Brother Trovoada to offer his apologies to President Holden Roberto for the damage which the communiqué in question had caused him," [Emphasis in original. |
The interview took place in the presence of Théodore Gbongo, personal representative of Mr. Bocheley and former confident of Patrice Lumumba and Major Wembo of the Revolutionary Congolese Army of Stanleyville,
“The revolutionary leaders," concludes the dispatch, "promised the GRAE representative in Cairo to do everything possible to discover the source of the slanderous communiqué published in Brazzaville,"
Meanwhile, inside Angola a rise in guerrilla activities has been reported. The National Liberation Army of. Angola. [ALNA] listed recent encounters at Cahungala, Nova-Gaia, Quibala, between Bula- Atumba and Golungo-Alto, at Cachimo, Tomboco, Damba and Lombe. Fighting even occurred close to Luanda on a plantation near Mabuba,.
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