Opposition unlikely to unite for Congo election in November that threatens to spark violence

There’s been no word from Bemba, imprisoned in The Hague for three years on International Criminal Court charges that militiamen under his command murdered raped and pillaged in neighboring Central African Republic in 2002 and 2003. He denies all charges.

Bemba’s lawyer in Congo said last week they expect him to be released for long enough to return home to lodge his candidature, a legal requirement that has to be fulfilled in person, though that remains doubtful. And Bemba’s insistence on running has ruptured his party with deputy leader Francois Muamba breaking away to form another party.

Kabila has been characteristically silent, not even announcing his candidacy.

November’s presidential vote will be the first since the landmark 2006 election, considered the country’s first democratic ballot in 40 years. After Kabila was declared the winner of a runoff votes against Bemba, battles erupted in Kinshasa between troops backing Kabila and armed fighters supporting Bemba. Scores were killed.

The mineral-rich country is still trying to recover from decades of dictatorship and war that had eight African armies and 25 local militias fighting, above all, for control of the nation’s minerals. Millions died before a peace agreement was brokered in 2003. Violence still rages in the country’s east, where government soldiers and rebels have brutally raped women, men and children and burned down villages.

Kabila has won points with many Congolese for brokering a controversial $9 billion deal with Beijing that would give China millions of tons of copper and cobalt in return for building a railway, roads, hospitals and schools, more infrastructure than the Central African nation has ever had.

On the corruption front, questions are being asked about the sale of some $800 million of assets from the state copper and cobalt miner Gecamines. Despite Kabila’s promises to bring transparency, no one will say how much the state mines’ assets have been sold for, nor what has happened to the money. Kabila’s opponents charge the deal, just months before the elections, will provide convenient campaigning funds.

The international community paid 80 percent of the 2006 election costs but has cut its contribution to less than 40 percent for this year’s vote.

Human rights violations remain massive in Congo, with impunity reigning, the unsolved killings of several journalists and the 2010 killing of leading human rights campaigner Floribert Chebeya. In June, the police intelligence chief and three other police officers were sentenced to death for Chebeya’s murder.

Amid the ongoing insecurity and violence, more than 31 million voters have been registered this year among Congo’s 68 million people. Opposition parties have denounced the process, charging that voter’s cards have been issued in the names of long-dead citizens, nonexistent people, to children as young as 12 years old and to foreigners.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.

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