Word: bemba
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...commission announced the interim results of the country's first free vote in more than 40 years Sunday night, fighting had broken out in Kinshasa, the mouldering capital on the Congo River. Supporters of President Joseph Kabila clashed with backers of former warlord and current vice-president Jean-Pierre Bemba, who accused Kabila's Republican Guard of attacking its headquarters. Earlier, young men angry with Kabila's success hurled insults and rocks at patrolling policemen. "If you want war," they shouted, according to the BBC, "we are ready...
...Perhaps it will come to that. The fighting escalated Monday, forcing U.N. peacekeepers to evacuate a group of foreign diplomats who had arrived in Bemba's compound for a meeting and found themselves pinned down by artillery fire. On Tuesday morning, according to Reuters, automatic weapons fire ripped through the city and at least two government tanks headed towards the main area of fighting. The United Nations says it is flying in 400 extra Dutch and German peacekeepers on standby in nearby Gabon. They will join the 17,000 U.N. peacekeeping troops dotted around the vast central African nation. Diplomats...
...results from the July 30 poll give Kabila, who took office after the assassination of his father Laurent in 2001, just under 45% of the votes cast. Bemba, who led one of the biggest rebel factions in Congo's civil war (from 1998 to 2003) before taking a vice-presidential post in the transitional government, came second with just over 20% support. Because no challenger passed the 50% mark, the two will now face a run-off vote in October...
...rebels in the eastern Ituri province, U.N. officials announced. The Uganda-backed Movement for the Liberation of Congo reportedly committed the atrocities between October and December in an effort to drive out supporters of rival militias. The rebels dismissed the reports as attempts to smear their leader Jean Bemba, who is set to become Congo's Deputy President...
...power - orchestrated, according to diplomats, by his Zimbabwean and Angolan allies. "The power today is dictated by Zimbabwe," says opposition leader Joseph Olenghankoy, who is calling for immediate talks on elections and last week, with other opposition leaders, met the head of the main rebel group Jean-Pierre Bemba to discuss a possible alliance. "The weight of Congo is too much for him. Politics needs strategy, and all he's got is foreign backing." Kabila says he will hold elections once the "foreign aggressors" have withdrawn and dismisses talk of foreign influence on the government. "The Congolese people understand. There...