Elections
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-congo31jul31,0,314210.story?coll=la-home-world
The above article is a very good approximation of all I know about the elections here in the DRC.
For us here in the capital city, the run up to the elections consisted of getting multiple alerts from the embassy and various security concerns about where not to go, occasionally avoiding crowds and eating leftovers on election day because most of the resturants and grocery stores were closed. Election day itself was very quiet.
I read a book written by a man who was a military attache here 12 years ago. He said nothing much ever changes here in the Congo. He also said Congolese soldiers had a habit of extorting money from merchants by showing them a grenade, pulling the pin then saying "your money or your life." They would then put the pin back in and go on to the next guy. Well, you do enough of this, the pin gets loose and tends to fall out by itself.
During the week before the election, more than a dozen people in the main market were injured when a grenade carried by a soldier went off as he was boarding a bus. So Tom Odom was right.
The book is called Journey Into Darkness by Tom Odom. Quite good.
The above article is a very good approximation of all I know about the elections here in the DRC.
For us here in the capital city, the run up to the elections consisted of getting multiple alerts from the embassy and various security concerns about where not to go, occasionally avoiding crowds and eating leftovers on election day because most of the resturants and grocery stores were closed. Election day itself was very quiet.
I read a book written by a man who was a military attache here 12 years ago. He said nothing much ever changes here in the Congo. He also said Congolese soldiers had a habit of extorting money from merchants by showing them a grenade, pulling the pin then saying "your money or your life." They would then put the pin back in and go on to the next guy. Well, you do enough of this, the pin gets loose and tends to fall out by itself.
During the week before the election, more than a dozen people in the main market were injured when a grenade carried by a soldier went off as he was boarding a bus. So Tom Odom was right.
The book is called Journey Into Darkness by Tom Odom. Quite good.
posted by Carl at 5:07 AM
1 Comments:
Good to know that the election did not bring some of the unrest expected, although perhaps that is being reserved for the announcement of the winners...
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