Killings stir fears of Congo election violence

KINSHASA - Gunmen have killed up to seven people at an election rally in eastern Congo in an attack which revived fears that violence could disrupt the country's historic polls later this month.

The unidentified gunmen opened fire on the rally on Monday afternoon near Rutshuru in Democratic Republic of Congo's North Kivu province, where marauding bands of rebels and militias still terrorize the civilian population.

The former Belgian colony holds its first free multiparty polls in four decades on July 30, but violence still grips many parts of the vast central African country despite the presence of the world's biggest United Nations peacekeeping force.

The candidate who had staged the rally that was attacked fled to Uganda in fear of his life and other local candidates said they were asking the UN for protection.

Tensions were also running high in the capital Kinshasa, where police fired tear gas on Tuesday at several hundred rioters protesting at what they called irregularities in the electoral process. The protesters tore down election posters.

Officials said several people were also wounded in Monday's unexplained shootings at the rally staged at Mugogo, 15 km east of Rutshuru, by independent parliamentary candidate Jean-Luc Mutokambale.

It was the worst campaign-related violence reported so far in the run-up to the July 30 polls in which President Jospeh Kabila - who took power after his father was assassinated in 2001 - is standing against 32 other contenders.

"He (Mutokambale) was holding his meeting in the market when people opened fire on them. Seven people were killed and several others were injured. The candidate has had to flee to Uganda," said Sekimonyo wa Magango, a rival candidate in Rutshuru.

"Anything can happen out here," he told Reuters.

The polls are intended to usher in a new era of stability after a 1998-2003 war which sucked in six neighboring states and killed around 4 million people through violence, hunger and disease in one of the world's worst humanitarian disasters.

Worries over army

A UN spokeswoman in North Kivu, Jacqueline Chenard, said a UN team had been sent to investigate the Mugogo attack.

"Many candidates in these areas cannot carry out their campaigns freely. The situation is precarious just two weeks before the elections," she said.

International donors backing the election, which at a cost of US$400 million will be one of the most expensive ever supervised by the UN, called for the country's national army to be confined to barracks before, during and after the voting.

This was necessary "to maintain a climate of calm during the vote and also to ensure the army is not politicised," the donors' group said in a statement.

Diplomats said this indicated a clear lack of confidence in the fledgling national army, into which demobilised rebels and militia fighters are being integrated. Rights groups accuse army soldiers of regularly killing, raping and robbing civilians.

The donors' group, which includes the UN, said the recommended confinement measure should include Kabila's presidential guard and that Congolese police should maintain law and order during the polls, along with UN peacekeepers.

Some presidential and parliamentary candidates have been calling for a suspension of the campaign over fears that election authorities may rig the vote.

Kabila's foes say the international community is clearly backing the incumbent president and accuse him of abusing his control over state media and the security services to gain an unfair advantage over other contenders.

- REUTERS