UN forces fire on looting mobs in Congo

UN forces opened fire on angry mobs, killing two people, as massive looting protests overran Congo’s capital today in outrage at the fall of an eastern border city to rebels.

It was the worst unrest in Africa’s third-largest nation since the end of its 1998-2002 civil war.

Two renegade eastern commanders pledged to end their one-day takeover of Bukavu, on Congo’s eastern border with Rwanda, raising hopes that the crisis could be defused.

“We shall withdraw … to assure the transitional government that we are not opposed to it,” said General Laurent Nkunda, one of two commanders who broke from ranks of the post-war government’s forces to seize Bukavu.

In the capital Kinshasa, mobs, some estimated as hundreds of thousands strong, turned their anger on Congo’s government and Congo’s 10,800-strong UN force for allowing Bukavu’s fall.

“The state is dead!” protesters armed with wooden clubs cried, in protests that broke out city-wide at daybreak. ”We will punish the United Nations ourselves.”

UN troops fired upon massive throngs that broke down the main door of their. Logistics base and stormed the building, UN Congo mission spokesman Hamadoun Toure said.

“They entered, and there were very many of them,” Toure said. UN forces fired “for reasons of legitimate self-defence.”

The gunfire killed two protesters and wounded a third, the UN spokesman said.

Separately, Congolese security forces fired – apparently into the air – to hold back tens of thousands who besieged UN mission headquarters in the heart of Kinshasa, trapping staff inside.

The protests were the most tumultuous in Congo’s teeming, refugee-crowded capital since 1997, when long-time dictator Mobutu Sese Seko fell, launching Congo into the 1998-2002 war.

Congo President Joseph Kabila accused Rwanda, Congo’s main foreign adversary in the war, of involvement in Bukavu’s capture, and declared a state of emergency and a ”general mobilisation” of citizens and resources nationwide.

But Kinshasa protesters denounced Kabila’s weak post-war government, calling the president a traitor.

“Kabila is an accomplice of Rwanda,” some protesters cried.

Congo’s civil war started in 1998 when Rwanda and Uganda backed Congolese rebels seeking to overthrow the post-Mobutu government of Kabila’s father, Laurent Kabila.

Rwanda and Uganda accused Congo of failing to contain ethnic militias behind the 1994 genocide of Rwanda minority Tutsi and moderate Hutus.

Despite 2002 peace deals, sporadic fighting has continued in Congo’s formerly rebel-held east and north-east.