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South African police fired rubber bullets yesterday to disperse DR Congo opposition supporters in Johannesburg and arrested five who tried to storm their embassy in Pretoria, the Sapa new agency and a correspondent said.
In Johannesburg, police fired rubber bullets to break up a group of demonstrators gathered in front of the ruling ANC party headquarters to protest South Africa’s alleged involvement in fraud in the November 28 election in the Democratic Republic of Congo, protesters told Sapa.
“According to a vendor, shots were fired”, Sapa reported.
“They carried posters saying President Jacob Zuma should stay out of Congolese affairs,” Sapa reported, in reference to reports that definitive results of the contentious vote could be released in South Africa.
“Zuma has organised fraud in our election,” one of the protesters, Mondeor Mwela, told Sapa.
Demonstrators threw business cards of Etienne Tshisekedi, Congolese opposition leader and main challenger to DR Congo President Joseph Kabila, in the air.
The group also said South Africa’s election observers had known about cheating in the recent elections, but had done nothing to stop it.
Last week a Congolese association said a batch of election ballots were transported from OR Tambo International Airport to Kinshasa one day after the elections in an apparent ballot-stuffing attempt. The papers had been printed in South Africa.
“That’s a problem for us because the president of the election commission had said that all the voting material had arrived and now we find out five million ballots were leaving for the DRC one day after the election,” said Jean-Pierre Lukamba of Friends of Congo.
In Pretoria, protestors “against information that the election results would be proclaimed in South Africa and not in the DRC” attacked the DR Congo embassy, an unnamed spokesman for the group said.
The group broke windows and tore down a compound gate.
According to a reporter at the scene, five of them were detained. The protestors then gathered outside a police station to protest against the arrests.
Tensions have risen in DR Congo since first results for last week’s vote showed Kabila’s People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy in the lead.
His rival Tshisekedi, of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress, has issued thinly veiled threats of violence should further results fail to reverse the trend.
Over the weekend 3,000 people fled the capital Kinshasa for Brazzaville in the neighbouring Congo Republic fearing unrest after the definitive publication of the results planned for Tuesday.
In a statement, Zuma congratulated DR Congo on successful elections “under difficult conditions given the technical and logistical challenges that exist in the DRC.”
“The people of the DRC have shown their determination and will to consolidate peace, enhance national reconciliation, boost the democratic process and lay the foundation for lasting peace as well as economic and social development,” he said.
Speaking for regional organisation the Southern African Development Community (SADC), Zuma urged unity upon three presidential candidates, Kabila, Tshisekedi and Vital Kamerhe of the Union for the Congolese Nation, in telephone calls Sunday night.
“I impressed upon them the need for sound leadership and unity at this time. As SADC we rely on them to ensure that the process going forward is smooth and in line with democratic principles as well as AU and SADC protocols,” Zuma said in the statement.