Blantyre, Friday.
AT least 16 people were killed in fighting today between
helicopter-backed Malawian troops and Young Pioneers in the capital
Lilongwe after authorities ordered the army to disarm the paramilitary
youths.
As dusk approached, sporadic gunshots still echoed through the streets
and state radio carried appeals for soldiers to return to barracks.
Witnesses said heavily-armed troops stormed buildings occupied by the
pioneers, a much-feared force traditionally used by ailing President
Kamuzu Banda's Malawi Congress Party (MCP) to spy on Malawians and
enforce obedience to one-party rule.
Fighting began at 10am, dying away after just over two hours.
Witnesses counted at least 16 bodies sprawled outside one of several
buildings stormed by the soldiers.
The radio, appealing for troops to return to barracks, said the
multi-party National Consultative Council, which is charting the
country's transition to democracy, would meet to discuss the unrest.
The fighting began after Malawi's three-man Presidential Council, set
up to run the country while Banda recovers from brain surgery, issued an
order to disarm the Pioners early today.
The order followed a review of an incident on Wednesday in which
pioneers shot dead two soldiers and wounded two others in the northern
city Mzuzu.
The council said the incident apparently was sparked by a weekend
fist-fight between soldiers and pioneers.
In the early afternoon, shops and businesses were closed and people
were nervously making their way home in Lilongwe, capital of the tiny
southern African state which is just emerging into democracy after a
referendum rejected one-party rule last June.
Banda, believed to be in his mid-90s, ruled his 9[1/2]m people with an
iron fist since independence from Britain in 1964.
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