DR Congo authorities 'hired thugs' to attack protesters

Top security and ruling party officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo appear to have "hired thugs" to attack peaceful demonstrators last month in Kinshasa, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday.

"On September 15, 2015, (armed youths) brutally attacked a public meeting organised by political opposition leaders to call for President Joseph Kabila to step down after his constitutionally mandated two-term limit ends in December 2016," the New York-based watchdog said in a report after observing the protest.

At least 12 demonstrators were wounded, while one of the attackers died after protestors began to fight back. When police officers took his corpse to the morgue, they ordered staff there to tell nobody and labelled it "a body of the state", the report said.

Several men who said they took part in the attack with sticks and clubs told HRW that they were among more than 100 youths recruited by senior security officials and Kabila's People's Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (PPRD) and paid some $65 (58 euros).

After a night in a military base, these recruits were driven to the scene of the protest. "We were told to start attacking the demonstrators and create disorder as soon as one of the opposition leaders insulted President Kabila," a participant said.

Government spokesman Lambert Mende denounced the findings of the rights organisation as "politically motivated" and "not credible".

"We're interested in any denunciation based on verifiable facts to enable the judiciary to do its work," Mende told AFP.

Under the constitution of the vast central African nation, Kabila is barred from becoming a candidate in a presidential poll due in November 2016.

Opposition parties and a part of the presidential majority in parliament accuse Kabila of seeking ways to cling to office, including postponing the election.

Witnesses told HRW that Kinshasa's police chief, General Celestin Kanyama, was "among at least three senior officials at the recruitment meeting the night before the demonstration", the report said.

Kanyama has already been implicated in serious violations of human rights, including the deaths of at least 36 people in a crackdown on an anti-Kabila demonstration in the capital last January.

Last month, the armed youths were allegedly backed by agents of the National Intelligence Agency, police officers and soldiers clad in civilian clothes, HRW said after interviewing victims, several assailants, witnesses and medical staff.

"People in Congo have the right to demonstrate peacefully about presidential term limits without being attacked by hired thugs," said Ida Sawyer, HRW's senior Africa researcher.

The NGO urged the large UN mission in DR Congo, MONUSCO, to deploy police at the venues of planned demonstrations in light of a "growing crackdown" by Kabila's aides.