UN troops sent to burning city
2005-05-20 22:05
Kinshasa - The United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo sent peacekeeping soldiers on Friday to the central city of Mbuji-Mayi after days of bloody riots and arson attacks on political offices, said a Monuc spokesperson.
Lieutenant-colonel Dominique Demange said: "We sent about 40 Uruguayan blue helmets to Mbuji-Mayi this morning, as part of a deployment already planned for several weeks anyway."
According to officials, at least two people were killed in clashes that erupted between police and demonstrators on Tuesday in the main town of Kasai-Oriental province, a stronghold of veteran opposition politician, Etienne Tshisekedi.
A hospital sources said four people died and at least nine were injured in tit-for-tat arson attacks that began when Tshisekedi supporters set fire to the local political offices of a party supporting President Joseph Kabila and a former rebel group, then saw the building of their own Union for Democracy and Social Progress party razed overnight on Wednesday.
New post-war constitution
Authorities imposed a midnight to 06:00 curfew on Mbuji-Mayi on Tuesday and said calm had been restored by Thursday, though officials and other residents reported shops still closed and people were reluctant to use their cars on the streets.
The trouble began in response to a call by Tshisekedi for a "dead city" protest of strikes and stayaways across the country before Kabila on Monday gave both houses of parliament and the nation a speech on a new post-war constitution and the future of a transition to democracy.
The DRC, under the supervision of a Monuc force of 16 700 troops, civilians and police, was emerging with difficulty from a 1998-2003 war, the last of a series of conflicts to ravage the vast central African country, where most people were very poor in spite of its immense, but often looted or mismanaged mineral resources.
Politicians signs accord
A transitional power-sharing period ahead of the first democratic elections since those held on independence from Belgium in 1960 was due to end on June 30.
The independent electoral commission had asked for a six-month delay, in line with an accord signed by politicians in South Africa in 2003.
Tshiskedi, who had both served in and opposed previous regimes, stated that as far as he was concerned, the transition was over on June 30.
His call for street protests - for the delay that was implicitly endorsed by Kabila and had UN backing as realistic - was largely ignored, but not in Mbuji-Mayi.
- SAPA