KINSHASA (Reuters) – Forces loyal to Congo’s rival presidential contenders fought gun battles in the capital Kinshasa on Saturday in the latest violence to mar historic elections meant to end a decade of war and chaos.
The government threatened to send the army to quell fighting involving troops of Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba, a former rebel chief who says electoral fraud has hurt his challenge to President Joseph Kabila. But guns fell silent after the pair’s representatives met with international peacekeepers and police.
« Kinshasa is now calm, » a United Nations spokesman said.
The world body’s biggest peacekeeping force reinforced its positions in the streets, and mission chief William Swing met Bemba and spoke to Kabila by phone.
« The situation has calmed down but it must be clear that it is only the security forces who should be on the streets maintaining order, » Interior Minister Denis Kalume told Reuters.
Some of Bemba’s troops said the fighting was against police and Kabila’s loyalist Republican Guard, though Kalume said the elite force had not been deployed.
Bemba’s men, many wearing red bandanas round their heads and scraps of fur or grass on their wrists or guns as lucky charms, earlier took up positions in ditches on either side of Kinshasa’s main boulevard near Bemba’s office.
Bemba’s fighters brought out heavy machineguns and mortar tubes from their base in the office compound to the sound of automatic rifle fire and the occasional boom of rocket-propelled grenades and mortar rounds.
Some, carrying assault rifles or rocket-propelled grenade launchers, wrapped lengths of colorful 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. Tires lay burning in the street as some civilians fled on foot.
TOP-LEVEL MEETING
Kalume said representatives for Kabila, Bemba, the police and U.N. and European Union peacekeeping forces had discussed how to improve control over armed forces. Congo has a medley of conflicting armed forces left over from its 1998-2003 war.
U.N. and EU peacekeepers 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 in Kinshasa in which some 30 people were killed.
« Mr Swing is discussing with the vice-president about how their men must be returned to barracks, » Kalume said.
Fighting broke out 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 police were trying to disperse the youths and when they did they found armed men behind them, » Kalume said.
Bemba campaign manager Fidel Babala said police fired first.
« The police started shooting to disperse youths who had gathered to support us, » he told Reuters.
« We are waiting for it to calm so we can denounce new fraud. It involves 1 million votes. »
But in a blow for Bemba, Independent Electoral Commission chief Apollinaire Malu Malu dismissed his initial allegations of « systematic cheating. »
« The electoral commission has checked the complaints put forward by (Bemba’s) Union for the Nation. We have found there is no evidence to support the allegations, » a spokesman said.
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.
(Additional reporting by Irwin Arieff in New York and Sabine Siebold in Berlin)
