Around 50 soldiers loyal to Congolese former rebel chief Jean-Pierre Bemba were withdrawn from Kinshasa on Thursday after President Joseph Kabila gave an ultimatum for Bemba's forces to be removed from the city, according to Reuters. Foreign diplomats intensified efforts to head off another armed confrontation between soldiers and supporters of the two political rivals, who faced off in a historic presidential run-off vote in Democratic Republic of Congo on Oct. 29. Bemba, a vice-president in a transition government, refuses to accept a provisional result showing Kabila has won the vote in Congo's first free elections in more than 40 years. Bemba's supporters, including bodyguards, rioted amid heavy gunfire on Tuesday at the Supreme Court, which was set ablaze. The court must confirm the provisional result, after first ruling on Bemba's complaint that there was cheating. Kabila late on Wednesday gave the U.N. peace force, MONUC, 48 hours to remove Bemba's soldiers -- estimated at 600 -- from the riverside city. If not, he said the army would do it. "The first 49 soldiers have been moved out of town to Maluku," a military base for Bemba's forces outside of Kinshasa, a U.N. official, who asked not to be named, said on Thursday. A Congolese security source confirmed the transfer, which the sources said was carried out by the Congolese army. "They talked about 48 hours to start the programme, and the programme has begun in that period. We had a plan drawn up between the Congolese army and MONUC ... and it is that plan which was set to start soon. That is what is starting now," U.N. mission chief William Swing told reporters. Swing declined to say how many Bemba troops would leave, saying it was a matter for the army, which was running the plan. Army troops, some with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, guarded the streets of Kinshasa, which have seen fierce battles between Kabila's and Bemba's forces in recent months. U.N. and European Union soldiers also patrolled. "It's still not clear how serious this ultimatum is," a Western diplomat told Reuters. "But whether he (Bemba) gets rid of 50 or 100 men, there are still plenty more in town." Bemba's spokesman Moise Musangana played down the withdrawal's significance and insisted Bemba, as vice-president, had the right to a bodyguard. Despite the presence of the world's largest peacekeeping mission in Congo -- a more than 17,500 strong U.N. force backed by a smaller European Union contingent -- many analysts say peace in the country will be impossible unless private armies maintained by the rival factions are disbanded. The historic elections were intended to usher in a new era of stability and prosperity after a 1998-2003 war which triggered a humanitarian crisis that has killed around 4 million people through violence, hunger and disease. Congolese authorities are angry over the apparent inability of the huge and costly U.N. peacekeeping mission to control Bemba's fanatical followers in Kinshasa. They want the U.N. to disarm the Bemba fighters. U.N. officials say the mission does not have a clear mandate to do this and that this is the Congolese authorities' task. Foreign governments with troops serving as Congo peacekeepers were closely watching the situation. "We can only call on both sides, Bemba and Kabila and their supporters, to stick to the promises they made before the election -- namely to accept the result regardless of how it turns out," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters in Berlin.
