KINSHASA—Former Congolese rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba called for an end to fighting on Thursday after gunbattles with government troops in the capital Kinshasa, the first since landmark elections last year.
Gunfire and explosions rocked Kinshasa for much of the day after Bemba's personal militia defied a government order last week to disband after the polls, meant to bring peace to the vast, war-battered central African nation.
"I am asking that the situation calms down and that my soldiers return to their positions and that the FARDC (Congolese army) does not provoke them," Bemba said on U.N. radio Okapi, which broadcasts across the former Belgian colony.
"I ask the soldiers of the FARDC not to fire on my soldiers. We must talk like politicians," he said.
After the broadcast, the thud of explosions and sporadic gunfire could still be heard in the neighbourhood around the Supreme Court in Kinshasa's administrative district, close to one of Bemba's residences, a Reuters witness said.
U.N. radio said one person had been killed and several injured in a building on the main avenue where some of the fiercest fighting took place. A Reuters TV correspondent saw the body of one government soldier lying in the street.
"We're very worried by these violent clashes. We called for a ceasefire to be put in place before 1800 (1700 GMT) and we are still pushing for that now," said William Swing, head of the 17,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo (MONUC).
"The two sides have accepted the principle, now it is a question of discipline," he told the radio station.
U.N. armoured personnel carriers (APCs) patrolled the streets to protect civilians but did not intervene.
The clashes were the first in the sprawling riverside capital, a Bemba stronghold, since the elections. The polls were meant to draw a line under a 1998-2003 war that killed nearly 4 million people, mainly through hunger and disease.
Threat to Peace
Bemba's soldiers earlier chanted a battle cry in the local Lingala language—"Today we will not sleep"—as government forces fired tank rounds towards them. Bemba's two television stations were taken off the air late on Wednesday.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was deeply alarmed by the unrest, his deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe said.
"The Secretary-General calls for an immediate halt to the fighting which threatens the lives of innocent civilians in the area and risks grave consequences for peace," she said, adding MONUC was ready to help the government restore order.
Dozens of people were killed last year in fighting between Bemba's forces and President Joseph Kabila's presidential guard before an October second-round run-off between the two men.
Kabila, who took office when his father was assassinated in 2001 and won last year's polls, has ordered Bemba to slash his security detail to just 12 police officers.
The former rebel's supporters say he has the right to "an appropriate personal guard" under a U.N.-brokered deal signed before October's presidential runoff.
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