FORCES loyal to Libyan-backed President Ange Felix Patasse shelled dissident positions in the Central African Republic capital on Monday, battling to bring the city under control a week after a failed coup.
Despite Patasse’s declaration of victory on Sunday and foreign reinforcements to shore him up, dissidents appeared to be still holding out in southwestern parts of Bangui after last Monday’s attack on the president’s residence.
The coup attempt triggered the worst bloodshed in the former French colony since a series of mutinies in the 1990s and prompted Libyans and Congolese rebels to rush to Patasse’s aid.
Witnesses said some of the rebels hunted down by government forces were killed in cold blood.
”I saw government soldiers rounding up rebels and shooting them,” said a Lebanese businessman after visiting the suburb of Bimbo, a hotbed of army disaffection in previous mutinies.
Residents said machinegun and mortar fire could be heard on Monday evening coming from the southwestern suburbs of Petevo and Bimbo, where streets were littered with decomposing bodies.
They said fighting appeared to have spread northwards, with bursts of gunfire resounding near the airport.
France, which has in the past intervened to protect Patasse against mutineers, signalled it would not do so this time round and appeared to condemn foreign involvement in the crisis.
”We believe that the time for interference in Africa is over,” Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine told reporters as he wound up a visit to Mauritania.
”It is a principle that we are following and we strongly wish that everybody else followed it as well.”
Speaking on the newly set up Peace and Liberty Radio, Patasse said he had put a bounty of 25-million CFA francs ($32_000) on the head of dissident leader Andre Kolingba.
There was still no sign of the former military ruler, who handed over to Patasse following multi-party elections in 1993, after his house was captured by loyalist forces on Sunday.
Government soldiers have been deployed to prevent looting after thousands of civilians fled parts of the riverside city hit by the heaviest fighting.
Residents, however, reported widespread plundering from both sides of the front lines. Ugandan-backed Congolese rebels, some clearly young teenagers, have been seen heading back across the Oubangi River with looted goods.
Patasse forces have been helped by Congolese rebels led by Jean-Pierre Bemba, who has been fighting since 1998 in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.
Also backing Patasse are soldiers from Chad and troops and combat helicopters sent by Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi.
The government said dissident soldiers were joined in their attack by a 300-strong force comprising Rwandan refugees and African mercenaries and led by two Rwandan generals. – Reuters