AFRICA/CONGO RD - Calm returns to Kinshasa after violence on Sunday night in which two government soldiers were killed and several injured

Kinshasa (Fides Service)- Calm has returned to Kinshasa after episodes of fighting in the early hours of Sunday March 28. “City traffic is back to normal and people have gone to work ” a local church source in Kinshasa told Fides. “So far there has been no mention of a coup, the government affirms that gunmen attacked government buildings in the capital”.
According to local security forces the assailants could be former members of the Special Presidential Division guards of President Mobutu Sese Soko ousted in 1997 who died in exile. The attacks were launched at three in the morning targeting simultaneously two army barracks, a naval base and Ndolo military airport. Some of the shells fell on a densely populated area of the capital and on a local television station. In the fighting 2 members of the security forces were killed and about 20 assailants were arrested. The army has said it is searching for the aggressors.
One officer said some of the assailants came overnight from Brazzaville, the capital of the neighbouring Congo Republic across the Congo river. Local sources in Brazzaville told Fides that the minister of Information denied that his country was involved in the attacks in Kinshasa, adding that “Congo Brazzaville is not a receptacle for armed gangs”.
The Democratic Republic of Congo is at a delicate point of a peace process after the installation of an interim government formed on the basis of an agreement reached in April 2003 in Sun City, South Africa. The executive has the task of preparing political and presidential elections in 2005. The government includes representatives of the main rebel groups operating in the east of the country where at least 3 million people have died in civil war since 1998.
It was since President Laurent-Desire Kabila father of the now President Joseph Kabila was killed in January 2001, that Kinshasa had not seen similar episodes of violence” local sources told Fides. “We are not sure of the dimensions of the plot or who is behind the move to plunge the country into chaos ”. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 29/3/2004, righe 31 parole 379)