ANGOLA:Thousands of Angolan troops have been moved to the border of the Democratic Republic of Congo as Congo awaits the results of its first multiparty elections for more than 40 years.
The military deployment on the Angolan side of the border, confirmed by (three) military and civilian sources, is understood to involve between 3,000 and 5,000 troops of the Angolan Armed Forces. A high-level Angolan delegation last week met outgoing Congolese president Joseph Kabila.
After 4.7 million votes had been counted yesterday, Mr Kabila had the support of 51 per cent of the electorate compared to 19 per cent for his nearest rival, outgoing vice-president and former rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba.
Some 20 million people, 80 per cent of the electorate, voted in the July 30th presidential and legislative elections.
Mr Kabila has strong support in the war-torn east of Congo, where he is viewed as the candidate most likely to secure peace.
Mr Bemba, on the other hand, is hugely popular in his native northwestern province of Equateur, and has also mobilised massive support in the capital, Kinshasa, where some eight million Congolese live.
He has already threatened to take up arms again if the election is not, in his own estimation, free and fair. With 4,000 troops outside the capital and many more supporters inside, Mr Bemba's threats are being taken seriously.
Provisional results of the presidential elections are due next Sunday, August 20th.
If Mr Kabila wins an overall majority, he will avoid an October 29th presidential run-off, more than likely with Mr Bemba, but a contested result could plunge the country into a fresh round of public disorder and fighting.
Angolans are concerned about the future of the enclave of Cabinda, meanwhile, which is separated from the Angolan mainland by a rectangular-shaped finger of Congo that connects the latter to the Atlantic. Cabinda, which produces 700,000 barrels of oil a day, has been in the grip of a civil war since 1975.
Most Cabinda-based separatist groups are involved in a peace process that could see the enclave granted special status within Angola. Existing Angolan military assets in the area include a battalion with helicopter support in Cabinda and several hundred Angolan troops on Congolese soil, by agreement with the transitional government, near the port of Matadi.
Thousands of new troops have been concentrated in three groups on the Angolan side of the border. Two of these groups are close to the port of Matadi, Kinshasa's lifeline, where a shipment of arms bound for the Congolese ministry of defence has been in the process of a UN "inspection" for the last two weeks.
Angolan troops are also concentrated at a third location, several hundred kilometres west of the other groupings, but within 250km of Kinshasa.
Angola's intervention on behalf of Congo after the 1998 invasion by Rwanda and Uganda was decisive in saving the regime of Mr Kabila's late father, Laurent Kabila. The authorities, meanwhile, arrested six electoral workers on Friday, while 19 presidential candidates cried fraud and called for new elections.