"Jarmo Hurri" wrote in message
...

riverman And just now, as I'm writing this, a round of heavy
riverman artillery just went off at the camp across the street.

Riverman reporting from a foxhole?

riverman Any idea the name of the BBC reporter in town?

It's Arnaud Zajtman.


Ahh, never met him.

OK, the latest news is this. There was a coup attempt last night, with armed
assailants who came across the river from Brazzaville. They had some
supporters in the local military, and the unoffficial word is that Vice
President Bembe is somehow associated with it all, although no one is
pointing fingers yet. (He's the rabble rouser in the government.) The
insurgents simultaneously attacked some military bases (reports range from 2
to 4 bases) and a private radio/tv station at around 3 am this morning, and
the military fought back with heavy artillery. They routed the attackers,
and surrounded the last of them at the boat dock downtown where a serious
gunfight ensued. The last of the insurgents were caught midmorning this
morning, and the military says (get this) that they set off a round of heavy
mortar to announce that the coast was now clear. There was a press
conference on the local TV just a half hour ago, where the government
spokesman paraded the captured rebels for the cameras, and now they are all
to be executed this afternoon. The message is clear: don't mess with the new
Congo.

My sources on some of this are first- and second-hand: I just made a trip
into town with a local UN guy who lives next door to me. He was peeking over
the wall at 7am, and saw the soldiers from our camp rounding up a dozen or
so of their comarades who had apparently joined in the fighting on the wrong
side. He said they were getting beat up pretty badly, while their wives and
families were being ejected from the base housing. After they were
interrogated (right on the side of the road, in front of my friend who was
hiding in some bushes that were hanging over the wall), they were locked in
a guard shack on the streetside. At around 8am, the military trucks came and
hauled them off. These are some of the guys to be executed tonight. On our
trip downtown just now, all seems pretty calm. Very little traffic on the
road (it is Sunday, after all) and very little military presence. We passed
a convoy of trucks with 50cal cannons on the back just as we got back to
campus, and the soldiers looked pretty spit and polished. I think they were
just parading to make themselves seen. The usual places where there are
police guards were mostly abandoned: the UN guys said that many of the
police, who haven't been paid for several months, decided to go on a rampage
this morning when they heard that a coup was going on, and they shot up and
looted some shops downtown. The army sent out a squad to chase off the
police, which is what started the rumors tht the police were behind the
fighting last night.

So at this moment, it seems like a very short-lived coup attempt. The good
side is that classes are cancelled tomorrow, and I leave for South Africa
for vacation on Tuesday, assuming that there isn't a rush for flights. The
downside is that I missed my chance to be a witness to a really huge scale
coup attempt. :-/

Live from Kinshasa, this is riverman.