Minister calls for peace, vigilance before vote

Republic of Congo (ROC) Interior Minister Pierre Oba warned the population on Friday to avoid violence before a constitutional referendum due to take place by the end of the year, AFP reported. "The desire for disorder exists, even if on a smaller scale than before," AFP quoted Oba as saying. "We don't have to hide that fact - but let people beware not to be off their guard." With a census to count ROC's voters - hundreds of thousands of whom were displaced by years of civil war - due to be completed by the end of October, Brazzaville confirmed earlier this month that a referendum on a new constitution will be held before the end of the year. Oba said the first stage of the census - counting the population - has been completed and administrators were now entering the second stage, correcting and revising the electoral lists. After the constitutional referendum, general elections are to be held, aiming to usher in a stable, presidential regime in ROC. "We believe that the elections will proceed in an organised manner and produce fruitful and constructive results," he said. ROC President Denis Sassou-Nguesso is under pressure from backers to declare his candidacy in the presidential elections so that he can transform his 1997 military victory over his predecessor, Pascal Lissouba, into a legitimate electoral triumph. An estimated 20,000 people have died and another 800,000 people been displaced in ROC's protracted political and ethnic conflict, which included 1993, 1997, and 1998 civil wars and which officially ended in 1999. Fighting has largely pitted Nguesso's northern supporters against groups in the more densely populated south. Since independence from France in 1960, nearly a dozen coups and military uprisings have taken place in ROC.