Clashes between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) police and political protesters that left about 40 people dead last week also revealed the level of hostility toward Chinese in Kinshasa.
“Congolese, please” implored a sign in one store window, hoping it would be spared by the marauding protesters who attacked and looted about 50 Chinese-owned stores in the gritty Kinshasa neighborhoods of Ngaba and Kalamu. Other stores displayed the message “Ya bino moko” — “it belongs to you, too” in the local Lingala language — in a bid to discourage the rioting demonstrators who shattered windows, broke down doors and picked shelves clean in nearby shops owned by Chinese nationals.
“We’ve got a printing shop and spare parts store here, [but] nothing was touched besides the Chinese store,” said a 37-year-old businessman who owns dozens of business premises in the area.
According to rights groups, about 40 people have died over the past week in protests ostensibly against a proposed bill that could extend Congolese President Joseph Kabila’s hold on power in the vast African nation.
Human Rights Watch said in a statement on Saturday that security forces used excessive force during the protests and then tried to remove the evidence. The advocacy group said it had confirmed 36 dead in protests in the capital, 21 of whom were fatally shot by security forces, and four dead in the eastern city of Goma. The government put the death toll at 12.
The political demonstrations, confrontations with police and subsequent rioting targeting Chinese entrepreneurs may be rooted in the same popular disenchantment with Kabila and the power base he rules from.
Though the protests primarily opposed a change to electoral law that would allow Kabila to remain in office beyond next year — sidestepping a constitutional prohibition of running for office again — the rioters’ targets appeared to have been influenced by the government’s decision to boost economic ties with China.
DR Congo lawmakers on Saturday agreed to scrap the contested part of electoral bill, with Congolese National Assembly speaker Aubin Minaku saying that members of parliament will withdraw a provision from the planned legislation that required a census to be held before the next election.
Gigantic contracts between Kinshasa and Beijing signed in 2007 and 2008 gave Chinese companies the right to operate many of the mineral-rich DR Congo’s mines in exchange for developing the country’s road system and other infrastructure — deals Western nations denounced as unfair.
As a result, some observers say, when the protests opposing Kabila’s effort to retain power in the impoverished country turned to rioting, the focus fell on Chinese businesses.
Thousands of Chinese workers have come to the DR Congo to provide labor for the projects covered by those contracts, many in Katanga in the country’s southeastern mining center.
The Chinese embassy says that between 4,000 and 5,000 Chinese nationals live in the DR Congo, though the actual number is believed to be far higher. Many of those Chinese citizens work in and around Kinshasa on infrastructure construction projects, running businesses serving their compatriots and living together in packed housing in the capital’s poorer neighborhoods.
Some Kinshasa residents resent what they see as the Chinese preference for sticking together in segregated communities, retaining the customs, habits and language of their native land.
Local business owners also begrudge the shops opened by Chinese nationals to serve the needs of their compatriots, whose low prices also draw in Kinshasans as well. Today, signs written both in letters and Chinese characters are a common sight, hanging from storefronts and other businesses in Kinshasa’s working-class neighborhoods.
However, such signs also made the outlets easily identifiable targets when the political demonstrations turned into rioting in the capital.
“They sell everything, [and] we’re no longer doing any business because of them,” said a Kinshasa telephone card vendor, who said he hoped the spate of looting would serve as a “lesson” to his Chinese rivals.
“The Chinese slash prices,” said a 24-year-old resident, who called the competition from Chinese businesses “too much.”
Not everyone agrees.
“The Congolese are simply jealous,” said a woman selling bread from beneath an umbrella, shaking her head in dismay. “It’s a pity.”
A Chinese diplomat, who requested anonymity, told reporters the apparent targeting of Chinese businesses by rioters were isolated instances as part of wider unrest, and of no long-term significance.
Because of that, the diplomat said, no specific security instructions to nationals had been issued by the embassy, which insists there is no “plot against Chinese” citizens in the DR Congo.
PARLIAMENT CHAOS: Police forcibly removed Brazilian Deputy Glauber Braga after he called the legislation part of a ‘coup offensive’ and occupied the speaker’s chair Brazil’s lower house of Congress early yesterday approved a bill that could slash former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s prison sentence for plotting a coup, after efforts by a lawmaker to disrupt the proceedings sparked chaos in parliament. Bolsonaro has been serving a 27-year term since last month after his conviction for a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 election. Lawmakers had been discussing a bill that would significantly reduce sentences for several crimes, including attempting a coup d’etat — opening up the prospect that Bolsonaro, 70, could have his sentence cut to
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
‘UNWAVERING ALLIANCE’: The US Department of State said that China’s actions during military drills with Russia were not conducive to regional peace and stability The US on Tuesday criticized China over alleged radar deployments against Japanese military aircraft during a training exercise last week, while Tokyo and Seoul yesterday scrambled jets after Chinese and Russian military aircraft conducted joint patrols near the two countries. The incidents came after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi triggered a dispute with Beijing last month with her remarks on how Tokyo might react to a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan. “China’s actions are not conducive to regional peace and stability,” a US Department of State spokesperson said late on Tuesday, referring to the radar incident. “The US-Japan alliance is stronger and more
FALLEN: The nine soldiers who were killed while carrying out combat and engineering tasks in Russia were given the title of Hero of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attended a welcoming ceremony for an army engineering unit that had returned home after carrying out duties in Russia, North Korean state media KCNA reported on Saturday. In a speech carried by KCNA, Kim praised officers and soldiers of the 528th Regiment of Engineers of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) for “heroic” conduct and “mass heroism” in fulfilling orders issued by the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea during a 120-day overseas deployment. Video footage released by North Korea showed uniformed soldiers disembarking from an aircraft, Kim hugging a soldier seated in a wheelchair, and soldiers and officials
RSS