DRC: Forces loyal to Congo's rival presidential contenders fought gun battles in Kinshasa

Record ID: 376505

  • Title: DRC: Forces loyal to Congo's rival presidential contenders fought gun battles in Kinshasa
  • Date: 11th November 2006
  • Summary: KINSHASA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO (NOVEMER11, 2006) (REUTERS) PEOPLE RUNNING IN STREET,SOUND OF GUNFIRE, JOURNALIST BEHIND UN TANK, SOLDIERS LOYAL TO VICE-PRESIDENT JEAN-PIERRE BEMBA WITH GUNS UN SOLDIERS UN TRUCK WITH PEOPLE INSIDE (SOUNDBITE) (French) UNIDENTIFIED MAN SAYING: "There are 100 people over there waiting to fight. Give us two days and we will be ready t
  • Embargoed: 26th November 2006 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: War / Fighting,Defence / Military
  • Reuters ID: LVAEGM572X7YREW2G8HNWX5AJW9H
  • Story Text: Forces loyal to Congo's rival presidential contenders fought gun battles in the capital Kinshasa on Saturday (November 11) in the latest violence to mar historic elections meant to end a decade of war and chaos.
    The government threatened to send in the army to quell the fighting, which began mid-morning in Kinshasa's main boulevard near the office of Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba, a former rebel chief who says electoral fraud has hurt his challenge to President Joseph Kabila.
    Some of Bemba's troops said they were fighting police and Kabila's loyalist Republican Guard, though Kalume said the elite force had not been deployed.
    Representatives of the two candidates met police and officials from U.N. and EU peacekeeping forces, a U.N. spokesman said. William Swing, head of the world's biggest peacekeeping mission, also met Bemba and spoke to Kabila by phone.
    Bemba's men, many wearing red bandanas round their heads and scraps of fur or grass on their wrists or guns as lucky charms, took up positions in ditches on either side of the boulevard.
    They brought out heavy machineguns and mortar tubes from their base in Bemba's office compound. Some, carrying assault rifles or rocket-propelled grenade launchers, wrapped lengths of colourful fabric around their loins before heading to a cemetery across the boulevard from where heavy gunfire was heard.
    Comrades dragged at least one fighter with apparent gunshot wounds back into Bemba's compound, and at least one more Bemba loyalist was wounded, a Reuters reporter saw.
    Kalume said one policeman was wounded.
    The rattle of automatic rifle fire and the boom of occasional rocket-propelled grenades and mortar rounds echoed around the area as tyres lay burning in the street and some civilians fled on foot.
    A European Union force, sent to secure Congo's first democratic elections in more than 40 years, was on high alert but had not been asked to intervene, a spokesman said.
    The U.N. and EU forces have stepped up patrols in recent weeks, hoping to avoid a repetition of August violence when Bemba's and Kabila's private armies fought fierce battles here.
    Saturday's fighting started after police broke up a protest by Bemba supporters, who have staged small demonstrations in recent days since Bemba's coalition said it had evidence of systematic cheating during the vote count.
    The army, still chaotic and in the process of being rebuilt from the various factions in Congo's 1998-2003 war, had been confined to barracks for the duration of the electoral process except for specific missions.
    Full results have not yet been published, but partial figures published by the electoral commission and compiled by diplomats put Kabila ahead with around 60 percent of the vote.
    Kinshasa's population overwhelmingly supports Bemba, who speaks the same Lingala tongue as the western swathe of Congo, while Kabila speaks the Swahili of the east.
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