confidentially speaking
The Africa Confidential Blog
Kinshasa on the brink
Blue Lines
This week President Joseph Kabila's
bid to hang on to power in
Congo-Kinshasa has finally
triggered the violent clashes that
opposition parties had long predicted. At least 44 people are reported
by Human Rights Watch to have been killed after police tried to stop a
demonstration on 19 September calling for Kabila to leave office after
his second constitutional term ends on 19 December. A week earlier,
talks broke down between government officials and opposition groups
about a schedule for electoral registration and elections. The
government wants to delay the presidential poll – and Kabila's exit –
until next July at least.
World leaders were gathering for the UN General Assembly in New York
as
news of the deaths in Kinshasa came through, prompting Ban Ki-moon to
urge Congolese security officers to exercise restraint. Opposition
groups say hundreds of their supporters have been seized.
Although the African Union has maintained radio silence about this
latest effort by the President to extend his rule, France condemned the
government's use of force against protestors and called on Kabila to
leave power as scheduled. The United
States threatened to impose
sanctions.
While leaders in neighbouring Congo-Brazzaville,
Burundi, and Rwanda
have extended their tenure, foreign governments have stayed out of the
debate. But in Congo-Kinshasa, one of Africa's biggest, most complex
and mineral-rich economies, France and the USA want to wade in.
