Congolese riot over UN failure

Jun 04, 2004

Three people were killed here after countrywide protests broke out against the failure of United Nations peacekeepers to intervene

KINSHASA, Friday —Three people were killed here after countrywide protests broke out against the failure of United Nations peacekeepers to intervene to prevent the capture by rebel soldiers of the eastern DRC town of Bukavu on Wednesday.

The trio were shot dead as they looted a UN warehouse in Kinshasa during the demonstrations, UN officials said.
Dissident soldiers began withdrawing from the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo town of Bukavu on Thursday after the protests.
“We have seen movements (of dissident troops) going outside the town,” General Ian Isberg, head of MONUC, the UN peacekeeping mission in the country, told reporters in Bukavu.

Isberg said the withdrawal would most likely continue until Friday afternoon.
The capture of the capital of Sud-Kivu province on Wednesday by dissident troops led by General Laurent Nkunda as hundreds of UN peacekeepers in Bukavu took no action, caused outrage across the country.

Together with thousands of people in cities across the DRC, President Joseph Kabila (right) expressed bitterness about the failure of MONUC to intervene in Bukavu.
“A new war is being forced on us,” Kabila told the French newspaper Le Monde.
Kabila said, “Despite its arms and its mandate, the UN mission did not avert the fall of Bukavu.”

UN officials have said their forces did not intervene as Nkunda’s forces had not posed any overt threat to the civilians.
A crowd gathered outside the UN mission headquarters in Kinshasa, and others marched from all corners of the capital to join them, to demand that MONUC leaves DRC.

Police, who were out in force near MONUC headquarters in Kinshasa, reportedly fired into the air to try to disperse the angry crowd, said by an AFP correspondent to have numbered in the tens of thousands.
Sporadic shooting continued into the early afternoon in the centre of Kinshasa, where many shops and government ministries were closed. Calm returned by the evening.

The United States warned its citizens in the DRC to stay indoors and suspended all official travel in the country.
There were unconfirmed reports of similar protests in Goma and Butembo, the United Nations said, while residents of Bukavu also gathered to protest against the UN.

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