CONGO: The Democratic Republic of Congo is facing the threat of another civil war after the well-armed opposition yesterday rejected president Joseph Kabila's victory in the first free presidential election since independence
The country's powerful Catholic archbishop denounced the result as a western conspiracy to grab the country's mineral wealth. Nearly complete results released yesterday gave Mr Kabila close to 60 per cent of the vote in last month's run-off election against his only opponent, the former rebel warlord and businessman Jean-Pierre Bemba.
Voting reflected a deep divide along regional and ethnic lines that in the capital, Kinshasa, included an overwhelming rejection of the president. Tensions in the city are high after fighting by supporters of the two candidates left four dead on Saturday.
The ballot was intended to legitimise Mr Kabila's hold on power six years after he inherited the presidency following the assassination of his father, Laurent Kabila, and to end a decade of foreign invasion and civil war thought to have cost four million lives.
But yesterday Mr Bemba's Union for the Nation coalition said it had won more than half the votes and accused Mr Kabila of manipulating the result. It said the coalition no longer felt bound by agreements to accept the electoral commission's official results and to prevent violence.
Last night scores of UN peacekeepers surrounded Mr Bemba's house in Kinshasa. European and American diplomats have spent days trying to persuade Mr Bemba to accept defeat and take a senior post in government.
Diplomats say Mr Kabila has already offered Mr Bemba the post of prime minister but he turned it down. Some of Mr Bemba's allies are urging him to turn to armed resistance because they believe his overwhelming support in Kinshasa means he could seize control of the city and large parts of the east and north of the country.
Mr Bemba's backers have distributed large numbers of weapons among supporters in Kinshasa, while Mr Kabila has moved loyal troops and tanks into the city. The EU has deployed 1,400 peacekeeping troops in the capital to discourage violence.
But the European presence only confirms for many in Kinshasa that foreign governments are backing Mr Kabila in order for western business interests to mine diamonds and other valuable minerals.
That view was reinforced on Monday when the archbishop of Kinshasa, Cardinal Frederic Etsou, said: "I ask the international community to abstain from all attempts to impose on the people of Congo he whom they have not chosen as their president . . . just to satisfy gluttonous and predatory appetites like those of a foreign dictator."