DR Congo mourns opposition chief
VOLATILE Congo faced uncertainty yesterday after the death of Etienne Tshisekedi, the veteran politician who banded the opposition together against the father-son Kabila dynasty heading the vast mineral-rich nation.
Business was slow and some shops closed in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s usually bustling capital of 10 million people, Kinshasa, where large crowds gathered around Tshisekedi’s home and the headquarters of his Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) party.
Some 2 000 UDPS youngsters roamed the streets, some accusing the West of helping the regime of President Joseph Kabila do away with “the Old Man”.
Tshisekedi died on Wednesday aged 84 in Brussels, where he had been flown for medical treatment last Tuesday just as talks were scheduled to end the nation’s months-long political crisis.
Taxi driver Adonis Matondo said: “There should be a week of national mourning.”
The burly politician, who in the 1960s received the country’s first doctorate in law, had been ill for some time and had received treatment in Belgium.
He returned to DR Congo in July after two years there, successfully putting together a coalition to force President Joseph Kabila to hold elections on schedule. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets at the time to welcome him home.
The opposition – headed by the UDPS – is supposed to be negotiating the next steps in a New Year’s Eve power-sharing deal to avoid violence after Kabila refused to step down at the end of his mandate in December.
Brokered by the country’s influential Roman Catholic bishops, the deal allows Kabila to stay in office until late this year in tandem with a transitional body and a new premier, yet to be agreed.
But the talks to avoid all-out conflict in the country of 71 million people appear to have broken down, with no progress in recent weeks.