Kinshasa: Congo opposition fights to survive

By Staff
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Kinshasa, Apr 20: Beaten in the polls, battered on the streets and bereft of its main leader, Congo's demoralised opposition is fighting for its political life.

This weakness and the apparent determination of President Joseph Kabila and his supporters to take advantage of it could fracture the new democracy Democratic Republic of Congo hoped to build through historic elections held last year, analysts say.

''We feel like we are going backwards,'' said Thomas Luhaka of the opposition Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC), which last week suspended its participation in the lower house of parliament, saying its members feared for their safety.

MLC leader Jean-Pierre Bemba, whose militiamen were crushed by government troops last month in fighting that killed hundreds in the capital Kinshasa, slipped out of Congo last week after three weeks holed up in the South African embassy.

He travelled to Portugal, ostensibly for medical treatment, on a trip many believe could turn into a de facto exile.

The MLC's headquarters in Kinshasa has been occupied by police, and media with ties to the party have been shut down.

Orphaned by the exit of their ex-warlord figurehead Bemba, the opposition has also faced a coordinated government campaign of harassment and intimidation since last year's polls won by Kabila, UN officials and rights activists say.

''There has been widespread repression of the opposition for a long time. This goes back to November and December,'' said Anneke Van Woudenberg, a researcher with Human Rights Watch.

US-based HRW says more than 100 members of the Bemba-led opposition coalition have been victims of arbitrary detention.

Analysts say this crackdown, combined with the opposition being sidelined by Kabila supporters in key parliamentary policy commissions, could damage the exercise of democracy in Congo.

''The opposition is one of the pillars of democracy.

Marginalisation of that opposition will hamper the accountability of government.It leaves us with a bitter aftertaste, after the success of the elections,'' said Jason Stearns, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group think tank.

Bemba's Uncertain Future

Protected by the world's largest UN peacekeeping force and at a cost of nearly half a billion dollars to the international community, last year's elections were the first free polls in more than four decades in the vast former Belgian colony.

They were aimed at setting the country back on a democratic course after years of chaos, including a 1998-2003 war and accompanying humanitarian crisis that crippled the mineral-rich economy and have killed an estimated 4 million people.

But the recent events have raised fears of a slide back into the one-sided repressive politics that marked the 30-year rule of former dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, ousted in 1997.

''The radicals (in the government majority) are taking the upper hand,'' said Luhaka, the MLC national executive secretary.

Kabila allies say the reports of abuses against their opponents are exaggerated.

''It's a fake problem. They should have decided their position regarding Mr Bemba ... condemn him or support him,'' said Godefroid Mayobo, special minister attached to the prime minister's office.

The Kabila camp says the MLC, a former rebel group that fought in the war, must break with its violent past and distance itself from its leader. Much will rest on Bemba's fate.

Congo's public prosecutor has asked the Senate to lift senator Bemba's immunity so he can face security and murder charges as the ''intellectual author'' of the Kinshasa clashes.

If he stays out of the country to avoid prosecution, this means the opposition will need a new figurehead at home.

''The opposition is at a crossroads,'' one diplomat said. ''I think you would need to be quite courageous to stick it out in as a member of the opposition in Congolese politics these days.''

Reuters

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