The Congolese army has arrested four of its soldiers who will be put on trial for beating up dozens of civilians when they tried to vote in historic elections held on Sunday, an army spokesman said on Friday.
Votes are still being counted from the October 29 presidential run-off, which went ahead generally peacefully in Democratic Republic of Congo. Official results from the decisive contest between incumbent President Joseph Kabila and Jean-Pierre Bemba, a former rebel leader during Congo's 1998-2003 war, are due by November 19.
The run-off was the culmination of the first free polls in more than 40 years in the vast, former Belgian colony in central Africa. They were aimed at ushering in a new era of stability after years of war and chaos in the mineral-rich country.
Nevertheless, violence forced a re-run of voting in two towns and observers say several army checkpoints in the volatile east stopped thousands of voters from casting their ballots.
The soldiers were arrested in the northeast district of Ituri, a Congolese army spokesman said. "They are being held because they put up barriers and beat up members of the population on election day," the spokesman added, saying the checkpoint was near the town of Aveba.
The soldiers would be tried in Bunia, the capital of Ituri. Three years after the end of Congo's war, violence has still plagued the east of the country. The elections, which cost the international community more than $500 million, were protected by over 18,000 United Nations and European Union peacekeepers.
As poll results trickle in, Congolese and international officials have called for calm, hoping to avoid violence erupting due to rumours and the spreading of false results.
Tensions remain high and the announcement in August of the run-off sparked three days of street fighting between Kabila and Bemba's soldiers, which killed at least 30 people. The UN peacekeeping mission has soldiers stationed in Aveba and sent investigators to the town. But spokesmen refused to comment on the beating incident.
Anneke Van Woudenberg, a researcher for US-based Human Rights Watch, said she had interviewed victims of the beatings. She said there were two incidents during which about 40 people were stopped by soldiers who demanded to know who they were going to vote for and then beat them with sticks.
"Victims said they were tied up, made to lie on the ground and accused of being militia. One man said that he's never seen such a beating before in his life," she said. Van Woudenberg had told Reuters on Sunday that thousands more voters had been prevented from casting their ballots due to another army checkpoint in northern Ituri.
The district was a particularly violent battleground of Congo's last war, which caused a humanitarian crisis that has killed more than 4 million people, more than any other conflict since World War Two.
Ahead of the historic elections, Congo's army was due to be reunified following its disintegration into an array of factions and rebel groups during the last decade. But units remain chaotic, soldiers are poorly paid and government troops are some of the worst abusers of human rights, humanitarian organisations say.
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