DRC students brawl about cash

2004-06-08 16:44

Kinshasa - University students brawled on Tuesday in the Democratic Republic of Congo's capital, Kinshasa, apparently about money offered by President Joseph Kabila in the wake of deadly protests.

One of the students said the clashes were about sharing out money paid to a group of their representatives who saw the head of state on Monday after mounting demonstrations against Rwanda and the United Nations.

Hefty police contingents were deployed at the University of Kinshasa, the Higher Institute of Trade (ISC) and the Higher Institute of Applied Technologies (ISTA), said a corresondent.

Students in Kinshasa and other cities and towns in the central African country last week led demonstrations against neighbouring Rwanda, accused of invading eastern DRC, and United Nations peacekeepers, accused of doing nothing to stop the Rwandans.

Rwandans deny any role in violence

Several of the protests degenerated into looting and violence, with attacks against installations of the UN mission in the DRC known as Monuc.

The ensuing crackdown, including defensive fire by UN troops, claimed 12 lives in Kinshasa.

The Rwandan government last week denied playing any part in trouble in the eastern provincial capital of Bukavu, where former Rwandan-backed rebels, who have been theoretically integrated into the DRC's army, overran the town last Wednesday.

Renewed clashes broke out in Bukavu on Tuesday. Although the parties involved could not be immediately confirmed, gunfire came from a part of town where dissident troops could have been fighting regular soldiers.

Hundreds of Monuc peacekeepers, deployed in Bukavu under a plan to usher in a peaceful political transition after five years of war across the DRC from 1998 to 2003, have a mandate to open fire only to defend civilians or themselves.

Burning barricades, stones

Kabila on Monday saw student leaders, asked them to call off further planned protests and reportedly gave them $10 000 (about R66 000).

A student representative said that of this reported amount, each of the three campuses had seen only $800. That sparked Tuesday's brawls, he added, suggesting the president should have provided equipment instead.

By the end of the morning, calm appeared to have been restored on the ISTA campus, but stones were strewn around it along with the ashes left by burning barricades.

Fighting was continuing into the afternoon at the ISC and the University of Kinshasa.

A building used by UN forces near the ISTA, Alcatel-Monuc, appeared not to have been affected in the clashes.

- AFP