News
D.R. Congo update: Opposition calling for mass protests
Tshisekedi immediately rejected the result and declared himself president.
Police stopped opposition supporters from marching Tuesday in the eastern cities of Bukavu and Goma, whose mayors had banned protests.
In Lubumbashi, the country’s second-largest city, the elite presidential guard dispersed a protest Wednesday, injuring several people. About 30 local leaders from the UDSP were marching toward the main courthouse to protest the closure of their headquarters.
After local residents joined the march and numbers swelled to about 250, members of the presidential guard intervened, according to UDSP member Fabien Mutomb.
“It was a peaceful march,” Mutomb said. “We were surprised to see a military arsenal deployed in front of us. The presidential guard intervened violently.”
A report Tuesday by EU election observers was sharply critical of voting procedures in the recent poll, highlighting “the lack of transparency and irregularities in the collection, compilation and publication of the results”.
On Wednesday, representatives for both Kabila and Tshisekedi said the EU report should have gone further in describing who should actually have won the election.
Copyright 2011. AFP
