Unrest continues in post-poll Congo

Police in Congo’s capital prowled opposition neighbourhoods, rounding up young men who were seen being dragged out of their homes and shoved into waiting cars, a day after the government announced that the country’s opposition leader had lost the disputed presidential election.

Public transport was suspended in the sprawling city of Kinshasa, tyres continued to burn in sections of the city that had voted for opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi and bus companies ordered their fleets off the streets.

The tense city remained largely free of the violence that had been feared in the days leading up to Friday’s announcement of results.

But yesterday Congo’s police chief General Charles Bisengimana said that at least four people had been killed in the recent post-election violence, including a woman hit by a stray bullet.

Mr Tshisekedi, 78, took to the airwaves overnight on Friday to say he rejected the results issued by the country’s election commission, which handed victory to President Joseph Kabila.

He proclaimed himself president, saying the election had been manipulated to ensure a victory for Mr Kabila, who finished with nearly 49% of the vote.

Observers fear unrest if the opposition leader orders his supporters to take to the streets. So far Mr Tshisekedi has called for calm, telling his supporters to await his instructions. But that did not stop angry crowds from setting tyres on fire and erecting roadblocks in areas of the city that had overwhelmingly voted against Mr Kabila.

Yesterday an unmarked police car advancing slowly along Avenue des Cocotiers stopped abruptly in front of one house and officers carrying automatic weapons shoved their way through the home’s metal gate. They later emerged dragging out a young man as his mother stood by helplessly.

The scene, which took place in front of a team of reporters, was repeated a block later. Human Rights Watch senior researcher Anneke van Woudenberg said she was receiving calls from residents in numerous neighbourhoods in the capital reporting abductions by the police, though she said it was too early to confirm how many people had been taken.

“The police came. One of my children was sleeping. The other one was watching TV. They left with my children, with five in all. One is 20, one is 23, one is 19 and the two others are adults,” said Bienvenue Ngomgo.

“They broke down the door, the window, the door knobs. They broke our things. They took our mobile phones.”

Government spokesman Lambert Mende denied reports that police had shot live rounds after angry youths began burning tyres soon after the election results were issued on Friday.

He said police were only equipped with rubber bullets, and that each police unit was being flanked by a group of military auditors to ensure no human rights abuses were committed.

Human Rights Watch said in a report last week that 18 people had been killed in election violence, nearly all of them by Kabila’s soldiers.

Doubts are beginning to emerge about the veracity of results from last week’s election. International observers had originally said that although they had witnessed numerous irregularities, there was no systematic pattern of fraud.

Yesterday, observers with the Atlanta, Georgia-based Carter Centre said that there was growing evidence of possible vote suppression in parts of the country favourable to the opposition, and vote inflation in regions known to support Mr Kabila.

Mr Kabila won with 8.8 million votes, compared with 5.8 million for Mr Tshisekedi, who took 32% of the vote.

“We are very frustrated. It’s a big deception for us. You go and you vote, and it means nothing,” said opposition supporter Fabien Bukasa, 50. He said that in his neighbourhood, youths turned to vandalism in anger, but were now waiting to see what Mr Tshisekedi said.

“We went out, and we started to burn things,” he said. “On the spot. Because there was so much emotion. But the old man has asked us to stay calm. So we calmed ourselves. We are waiting for his instructions.”