DR CONGO: Bodies lie in Kinshasa's streets -- patrolled by U.N. peacekeepers -- after violence following run off election announcement

A second day of fighting between soldiers loyal to Congolese President Joseph Kabila and supporters of an election rival pinned down foreign envoys in Kinshasa on Monday (August 21) after the announcement of a run-off vote. Witnesses said presidential guards, using tanks and heavy machine guns, opened fire around a house in the capital where U.N. officials and ambassadors were meeting Kabila's main political rival, former rebel chief Jean-Pierre Bemba. A U.N. spokesman said those trapped by the gunbattles included the U.N. mission chief for Democratic Republic of Congo, William Swing, and ambassadors from a group of foreign donors known by its French acronym CIAT. The fighting erupted for a second day hours after electoral officials announced a presidential run-off vote between Kabila and Bemba following historic elections on July 30. They were the first free polls for more than four decades in the vast, war-battered former Belgian colony. While Bemba's spokesmen said heavily armed members of Kabila's presidential guard had attacked the candidate's followers around his riverside house, the presidency said they acted to deal with what they saw as an armed threat to Kabila. Some Kabila spokesmen said Bemba's followers, some of whom wore red bandanas, had fired on the presidency. "Swing and the CIAT ambassadors are in Bemba's residency. They are safe and sound. Everybody will be held accountable by the international community for whatever happens," U.N. mission spokesman Kemal Saiki said. "This seems to have started when the presidential guard went to disarm what they call militias there," he added. U.N. armoured personnel carriers deployed in the area around the house. "The idea would be to go in with APCs when the firing stops and get these people out," a U.N. military source, who asked not to be named, told Reuters. Besides the United Nations, CIAT groups representatives from the five permanent members of the Security Council, France, Britain, United States, China and Russia, as well as some African and other European nations. A Reuters correspondent saw plumes of thick, black smoke rising from the area of the residence. The fighting followed gunbattles on Sunday between soldiers loyal to Kabila and armed supporters of Bemba, in which five people were killed, U.N. sources said. The two men are due to face off in a second-round vote on Oct. 29 after provisional results showing neither candidate had won outright in the mineral-rich central African nation. Congolese police and U.N. peacekeeping troops had been patrolling the half-deserted city after Sunday's clashes. Kabila, with 44.81 percent of the votes, finished well ahead of Bemba, who had 20.03 percent, but failed to gain the more than 50 percent needed to win the presidency in the first round.

ITN Source | August 22, 2006

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