Alex Engwete

1) Prez returns to Kin; 2) Riot at Limete; and 3) CENI resumes publication of legislative election results

2012-01-27T10:57:00.001-05:00

1) Prez returns to Kin

Joseph Kabila finally returned to the Congolese capital in the afternoon of Wednesday, January 25, after a month-long absence. As usual, he was seen at the wheel of his SUV in the middle of the presidential motorcade.

Kabila's absence fueled wild rumors on Kinshasa Radio-Trottoir--especially as he and his wife failed to appear at Mzee Laurent Kabila's mausoleum on January 16, the 11th anniversary of the latter's assassination. And three days prior to the president's return, two Kinshasa dailies had beseeched the president to make a public appearance or statement so as to halt those rumors.

It turns out that Kabila was in seclusion at Lubumbashi--not in China, as Radio-Trottoir had it. A senior military officer in the know told me that Kabila was at his farm in the provincial capital of Katanga, "resting and heavily consulting" for his second term. Adding that the oncoming government will be mostly made up of "technocrats." He explained this by the fact that the "presidential majority" will be somewhat thinnish in the National Assembly and any appointment to a ministerial position of any MP would further erode that razor thin majority. In my view, this assessment doesn't square, however, with the way the new National Assembly is shaping up. Kabila's PPRD alone is emerging as rhe the first political bloc in Parliament--and, with the more than 200 allied parties who'd each won seats in the National Assembly, the "presidential majority" would still retain a comfortable majority.

2) Riot at Limete

A small and short riot erupted around midday on Thursday, January 26, at Limete commune, close to the residence of ghost president Etienne Tshisekedi. As a matter-of-fact, yesterday was the day Tshisekedi had set at his recent press briefing for the "people" to march him to the "Palais de la Nation," the presidential office! A tropicalized version of the Arab Spring, as it were. Which shows that Tshisekedi is now lost in cloud-cuckoo-land...

About a hundred hardcore Tshisekedi supporters showed up at the police cordon at Limete and were clubbed and tear-gassed...

3) CENI resumes publication of election results

Yesterday night, CENI resumed the publication of provisional results of the legislative election in a live radio and television broadcast aired by RTNC, the government-owned channel. All the board members of the national commission read in turn the results to the three dozens or so journos gathered at CENI headquarters on Boulevard du 30 Juin, in downtown Kinshasa. CENI Chair Rev Daniel Ngoy Mulunda was upbeat and in the mood for jokes.

But before releasing the results, Rev Mulunda was in a grim mood when he made the stunning announcement that the results of 44 "compilation centers" were simply voided for disturbances caused by MP candidates and members of various political parties. He also announced that 30 MP candidates who caused those disturbances will be deferred to the courts of law. In the meanwhile, their candidacies have been irretrievably voided.

The results showed that Kabila's PPRD was in the lead, closely followed by UDPS whose leader, Etienne Tshisekedi, has uncannily deemed this very legislative election null and void! Jean-Pierre Bemba's MLC has now been downgraded to the third political force in Parliament.

In Kinshasa, the only constituency whose results were published was the "Constituency of Kinshasa-2: Funa." Here, there were some dramatic wins by members of the opposition. Former anti-Kabila and pro-Tshisekedi TV political analyst Basile Polongo Pongo aka "Ndeko" [Brother] Basile is said to have trounced the other candidates--though there was no way to ascertain that fact as CENI chose this time around to release the names of the winning candidates by alphabetical order, without any mention of the number of votes garnered by each candidate. The other Kabila's foe (and Vital Kamerhe's supporter) to win in the constituency of Kinshasa Funa is Ne Nsemi, the leader of the banned Bakongo separatist cargo cult called "Bundu dia Kongo" aka "Bundu dia Mayala." Instead of running in his ethnic stronghold in the Bas-Congo province, the tribal sect leader chose to run in Kinshasa Funa constituency, which has a sizeable Bakongo population. To run in Funa, Ne Nsemi made up a makeshift party called "Pax Congo." Despite these gains made by the opposition, PPRD had one of its most vocal stalwarts, MP Francis Kalombo, the head of that party's youth wing, re-elected in Funa.

The results of the three remaining Kinshasa constituencies will be published Monday--thus bringing to a close, at least at CENI's end, the publication of the results of the legislative election. The Supreme Court of Justice will then publish the final results after making rulings on challenges brought before it by various candidates and political parties.

On a personal note, in my hometown of Kisangani, I hail the win of my former boss, businessman and provincial deputy Frédéric Apaka Tombila (owner of the company "New Pop s.p.r.l.). The bicycle cabbie Awenze also won as well as the current Economy Minister and former chief spy Jean-Pierre Darwezi.

Ruling virtual country by press conferences

2012-01-27T10:55:00.001-05:00

Etienne Tshisekedi thinks he's found a way of ruling his virtual country. By press conferences held at his Limete residence, around which the police has set up an equally virtual embattlement to keep the self-proclaimed prez in and his supporters out.

This was the stunt Tshisekedi pulled this past Friday evening when he convened a press conference--poorly attended for obvious reasons: the police tear-gassed those (journos and fans alike) who attempted to attend the event. The stunt was undoubtedly justified by the mounting pressure from die-hard UDPS members who in recent days have been accusing Tshisekedi of conniving with the regime by keeping mum for too long.

In the event, the press conference developed along three major axes:

1) Tshikedeki wants his supporters to march him to and occupy the "Palais de la Nation," the presidential office. A farce of the Occupy Wall Street movement... Tshisekedi knows he needs what he calls the "force publique" or the state means of violence monopolized by the security sector (army and police) in order to rule or to take his virtual gamesmanship into the realm of reality. (A very unfortunate and strange choice of words, for the Belgian colonial army in the Congo was called the "Fotce Publique.")

Though he acknowledged that the allegiance of the "force publique" was still elusive, Tshisekedi went on to say that the police and the army have already recognized him as the one the "people" has chosen to carry out the "change" the nation desperately needs. A circular reasoning that had many people shaking their heads over the man's insanity. The talk of Tshisekedi's win has all but died in the streets of Kinshasa as it has slowly dawned in people's minds that such a win is simply a "sociological and statistical impossibility," in the words of one pro-Kabila paper.

2) Tshisekedi announced he'll form a government within 7 days. Asked how he'd form a government when the results of the legislative electiion have still to be proclaimed and without a clear view of the new majority in the National Assembly, Tshisekedi then said that:

3) He has just voided the legislative election (a move that would certainly set him at odds with the oncoming freshmen MPs of his own party who'd be jettisoning their $7,000 monthly salary). And never mind this cancellation of legislative election: new legislative elections are due to be held soon. In the meantime, Tshisekedi added, he'd be ruling the country by presidential decrees. This proves the point of those for whom Tshisekedi is a closeted dictator. I'd agree instead with the conventional wisdom, unfolding these days in the streets of the Congolese capital, that Tshisekedi has lost his marbles!

Ruling virtual country by press conferences

2012-01-22T03:58:00.001-05:00

"The Curse of Lumumba" (Pius Ngandu Nkashama)

2012-01-17T08:27:00.001-05:00

Fifty-one years ago this day, Patrice Emery Lumumba, 36, was cowardly assassinated at Elisabethville (Lubumbashi).

I won't be rehashing the gruesome story here, which now belongs to the annals of history and filmography (both documentary and feature-length fiction)--except to point out that no one, among those who participated in the murder conspiracy, has ever been brought to justice. In fact, in Lubumbashi, the main plaza of the city is named after the man who ordered Lumumba's and two of his ministers' unlawful execution by firing squad (manned by Belgian officers), Moïse Tshombe.

And in Kinshasa, Etienne Tshisekedi, who, as deputy justice minister in the cabinet Mobutu formed after his first coup in September 1960, wrote the illegal brief demonstrating to Mobutu the legality of putting under arrest the country's first elected Prime Minister--thus arguably the trigger of the murder conspiracy--is alive and kicking. And in keeping with his ingrained habit of flouting state laws, Tshisekedi has recently illegally proclaimed himself the president of the DRC.

After Tshisekedi's self-promotion to the presidency, two schools of thought have emerged. Those (including myself) who dismiss the move as self-delusional gimmickry; and those for whom this shows that Tshisekedi has real political moxie. Well, both camps need to put the kibosh on their sneer or their praise. For Tshisekedi's theatrics might be the telltale sign that something ominous is afoot on this land: a rot at root and branch of the Congo...

I didn't come up with this notion--mind you! This mystical take comes from Pius Ngandu Nkashama.

Though literature has vanished in the Congo, there are however great Congolese "littérateurs." There are two major Congolese fiction writers, both of them lost to the American university systems: Vincent Yves Mudimbe and Pius Ngandu Nkashama. Nkashama is my favorite. He is one of the most prolific African fiction authors writing in the French language. Before Katrina disaster in New Orleans, he was teaching Francophone literature at the University of Louisiana (he may still be there, by the way).

A character in one of Nkashama's fictional texts, in explaining the unending misfortune of the Congolese nation, surmises that the "Curse of Lumumba" might be on the land. Just imagine, the character goes on to say: the founding father of the nation is summarily shot in the bush, buried, then disinterred, chopped to pieces, plunged into acid bath, and the scarce remains left burned and dispersed in the night of the Katangan savannah--his ghost condemned to wander the land without any hope of respite. As long as Lumumba's ghost wouldn't have been propitiated, this country will be doomed. No propitiating sacrifices would do: all the bits and pieces of Lumumba's body have to be collected, gathered and properly buried! An impossible undertaking, as it were, the foundational metaphor of the aporia dubbed "Congolese nation-state"!

Nkashama's "Curse of Lumumba" haunted me today as I watched on TV the queue of the regime dignitaries laying wreath after wreath at the foot of the ugly giant monument of Lumumba on Boulevard Lumumba in Limete, in eastern Kinshasa, not far from the residence of Tshisekedi, whom I've just called above the "trigger" of the conspiracy to assassinate Lumumba. That massive monument is no propitiation. The ghost of the national hero and founding fathet continues to wander the land, mad at the injustice wreaked on his soul...

This begs the following question: If the 5 million dead of Africa's World War weren't enough to propitiate Lumumba's vengeful specter, in what lustral waters need the nation to be cleansed for its lasting recovery?

Tunnel Vision: Koffi Olomide's new album "Abracadabra" draws fire from pro-Tshisekedi goons

2012-01-16T07:07:00.001-05:00

If soukouss star Koffi Olomide thought his new album aptly titled "Abracadabra" would be "an incantation used to ward off calamity" (Webster's), he has since no doubt put paid to that goosey notion. Pro-Tshisekedi goons are irked--nay, maddened--by Olomide for joining the presidential PPRD party and for his campaign hit song on behalf of Joseph Kabila.

On January 7, the date of the release of "Abracadabra" in Paris, pro-Tshisekedi supporters threatened to burn down the entire city block housing African music shops if these dared to put on their shelves the accursed CD.

In Kinshasa, where the launch of the album was preceded by a costly massive citywide billboard campaign, the official release of the album took place on Saturday, January 14, at the "Salon Congo" of the Grand Hôtel, with Olomide's press conference. Even at this secure venue, Olomide had to weather a vicious verbal assault by a reporter from the opposition press who went through a litany of the musician's alleged malfeasance: his "flight" from France to avoid a criminal investigation, and more importantly, his "flattery" of Kabila!

All these incidents evince the parlous state of democratic practice in the Congo. How, for instance, these supposed personal woes of Olomide are correlated with the artistic merits of "Abracadabra" could only be explained by a misunderstanding of politics in the damaged minds of pro-Tshisekedi's hoidlums. In which tunnel vision is well entrenched: either you are with Jean-Pierre Bemba (2006)/Tshisekedi (now) or we beat allegiance out of you!! Politics engaging the total being: either you are with us or you die!

Radio-Trottoir feed: The "Third Way" conspiracy or why Kengo was assaulted in Paris

2012-01-15T04:59:00.001-05:00

The grapevine of Radio-Trottoir has been feeding like crazy strands of rumors boiling down to variations on the same theme: a conspiracy called "La Troisième Voie" (the Third Way). A conspiracy allegedly hatched by Senate President Léon Kengo wa Dondo and Laurent Cardinal Monsengwo! A conspiracy that unfolds like a back-to-the-future plot line...

During the transitional period of the early 1990s that followed hard on the heels of the National Sovereign Conference (CNS) headed by Mgr. Laurent Monsengwo (then archbishop of Kisangani), Etienne Tshisekedi was appointed prime minister. But the next day, Mobutu fired him and his entire cabinet over a constitutional breach: before signing his oath of office, Tshisekedi had redacted the phrase "under the Constitution," which, according to Mobutu and his lawyers, rendered therefore "moot" his oath as well as that of his entire cabinet. A political crisis ensued, with Tshisekedi still claiming to be the prime minister.

In order to resolve the crisis, Mgr. Monsengwo is alleged to have come up with a solution he dubbed "the third way": that is neither Mobutu nor Tshisekedi, but a third man who would be an acceptable alternative to both men. He thought that man was his own buddy, Léon Kengo wa Dondo... Well, Monsengwo "third way" had little chance of being accepted by Mobutu who'd never ever deemed himself expendable...

Now fast forward to today. According to Radio-Trottoir, the current activism of Laurent Cardinal Monsengwo isn't deployed in behalf of Tshisekedi, but of his longtime friend and political ally Kengo. In fact, way before the election, the pair had hatched (or re-hatched) the conspiracy of the "third way"--though it has a more nefarious element this time around: murder!

According to one strand of the storyline, while speaking at a campaign stop in Bas-Congo Province, Kabila used a mike that had been laced with deadly poison. As his wife and his daughter spoke from the same mike, they were all poisoned and have since fled to China where they are being treated right now! In the event of Kabila's death, Kengo, who, as Senate president is next in line to step in, would assume the presidency.

According to another strand, the conspiracy allows for a Plan B. Hitmen disguised in uniforms of Kabila's Presidential Guards would assassinate Tshisekedi in broad daylight. The domestic and international outrage subsequent to the assassination would be so untenable that Kabila would flee to China. Once again, Kengo would step in as pro tem president.

This conspiracy thus "uncovered," "combatants" (as Tshisekedi's supporters call themselves) are resolved to have at the masterminds of the "third way." That's why Kengo, one of those masterminds, was so thoroughly trounced at the Gare du Nord in Paris...

DRC Catholic Episcopal Conference tones down sedition theology of Kinshasa Archdiocese

2012-01-13T09:04:00.001-05:00

The Catholic Episcopal Conference of Congo (CENCO) met in an extraordinary plenary session from January 9 to 11 to discuss the November 28 general elections. Politicians, especially those close to Kabila, were awaiting with terror the release of CENCO's statement on Thursday, thinking that it would be in a piece with the recent sedition theology developed by the Kinshasa Archdiocese.

CENCO's statement, albeit couched in tough wording, stopped short of calling for open sedition--as did the homily of last Saturday mass delivered by Mgr. Albert Kisonga, the auxiliary bishop of Kinshasa, who gave a strange exegesis of Romans 13:1 ("there is no authority except from God") upon which he superimposed Acts 9:1 (Saul "breathing threats and murder")...

In the event, CENCO's statement, based on the report by Catholic election monitors, was devastating both to CENI and the government.

In its recommendation to Parliament, for instance, CENCO urges it "to urgently review the composition of CENI which no longer enjoys the confidence of the population and to integrate into it the representation of the civil society for more independence; additionally, to realize that the people won't let pass any attempt to modify the locked-in articles of the Constitution" (among the "locked-in articles" of the Congolese constitution is the article pertaining to the president's maximum two terms in office which can't be changed anyway, lest the person attempting the change be accused of high treason).

In my view, despite its relatively sober tone by comparison to the earlier fatwas issued by Cardinal Monsengwo and Mgr. Kisonga, CENCO's statement is none the less outrageously meddlesome. The Congolese state is secular and cannot yield to the dictates of some prelates, no matter the guise of drag queens in which they issue their fatwas!

1) Mutiny defused but blackout in Bukavu; and 2) Kabila's twin sister elected MP in Katanga

2012-01-09T18:37:00.001-05:00

1) Mutiny defused but blackout in Bukavu

The mutiny that broke out on Monday January 9 around midday in Bukavu
lasted for about one and a half hour. It was defused after
negotiations with the mutineers. The mutiny was caused by the
mutineers' perception of Kinshasa's double standard, according to
information pieced together by Bukavu residents. Apparently, "Kabila's
soldiers billeted in Bukavu are better and regularlarly paid, whereas
Bukavu's units eke out a living with miserly salaries sporadically
paid," my relative told me over the phone.

Though the shootout had abated in the afternoon, electricity was cut
off in the evening in the provincial capital. This blackout scared
city residents who remained holed up in their homes.

2) Kabila's twin sister elected MP in Kalemie, in Katanga Province

Independent MP candidate Jaynet Kabila, the president's twin sister,
was elected MP in Kalemie, one of her family's strongholds in
Katanga--the other stronghold being Manono, where her younger brother,
Zoe Kabila, also an independent candidate, is poised to win. (The
incoming freshmen parliamentarians will feature an interesting cast of
generational "reproduction" of the Congolese political class:
Tshisekedi's sister and son have also been elected in their stronghold
of Oriental Kasai. Pierre Bourdieu readily comes to mind...)

Jaynet Kabila got 35,569 votes (the first in the constituency),
whereas the MP-elect who trailed her came a distant second with 10,648
votes.

CENI Chair's son, Emmanuel Ngoy Mulunda Nyanga, also an MP candidate
in the same constituency, was third with 9,413 votes. Some in Kinshasa
Radio-Trottoir think CENI Chair Rev Daniel Ngoy Mulunda Nyanga is
actually "the" Ngoy Mulunda Nyanga elected in Kalemie! I spent close
to a half-hour today trying to dispel such nonsense uncannily uttered
by university students!

Army mutiny in Bukavu, South Kivu Province

2012-01-09T06:05:00.001-05:00

A relative just called to inform me that intense shootings have just
erupted in Bukavu, the provincial capital of South Kivu Province. The
garrison has allegedly mutinied over soldiers' embezzled pay! At this
writing, Bukavu residents are cowering, holed up in their homes.

Larry Devlin, Congo CIA Chief of Station: in his own words

2012-01-06T05:20:00.003-05:00

Someone in the household pointed me to my Kinshasa library where I fou
Larry Devlin, "Chief of Station, Congo" (Public Affairs, New York, 2007, p.95):

I'll never forget my reaction of total, fall-to-the-floor shock.
"Jesus H. Christ!" I exploded "Isn't this unusual?"

(...)

"Who authorized this operation?" I asked.
"President Eisenhower," Joe said. " I wasn't there when he approved it, but Dick Bissel said that Eisenhower wanted Lumumba removed."

(...)

He handed over several poisons. One was concealed in a tube of toothpaste. If Lumumba used it, he would appear to die from polio.

The People's Republic of Kinshasa: "A bullet train headed straight against the wall" (Mgr Nicolas Djombo)

2012-01-06T05:20:00.001-05:00

The third round of CENI announcement of partial results of the presidential election occurred late in the night of Sunday, December 4. With 52.91% of votes tabulated from the 168 CENI regional "compilation centers," the trend from the two previous partial results remains steady, unchanged, and statistically sound: Kabila maintains his lead with 4,841,555. It now seems statistically impossible for Tshisekedi to reverse that trend: he's at 3,402,642.

As could be anticipated, Tshisekedi and his sycophants have rejected these results and second-guessed the unplanned CENI incremental releases of partial results as "politically motivated." (A smart move by CENI, in my view, this gradual release of steam.)

And sticking to UDPS worn-out talking-point of describing CENI Chair Rev Daniel Ngoy Mulunda as partial to Kabila, Tshisekedi proffered yet another one of his routine Armaggedon-crazed and raving imprecations on Saturday.

Said Tshisekedi: "UDPS rejects these results, and warns Ngoy Mulunda and Kabila they should respect the will of the people... Failing that, they risk committing suicidal acts!" Adding that he was mulling issuing a doomsday "mot d'ordre" (watchword)!

Whatever that means... Wait a minute! Maybe the man seriously means what he says. Who knows? He's been behaving like a loonie for quite some time. He may seriously expect to see Kabila and Mulunda enact a dramatic public murder-suicide at the sight of UDPS murderous mobs his "watchword" would loose upon the city and the country!

Not to be outdone, crushed presidential hopefuls Vital Kamerhe and Léon Kengo wa Dondo--including the paper-weight and farcical presidential candidate Nicéphore Kakese-- followed suit. The most extremist in this cast of sore losers is Kamerhe. "This joke has been going on for too long," Kamerhe exclaimed, in an unprovoked non sequitur. "And we got to put a stop to the theft of the resources of our country!"

This deleterious climate has prompted the national conference of Catholic bishops (CENCO), which had deployed more than 30,000 electoral observers countrywide, to withdraw from a post-electoral seminar with international NGOs it was planning on attending.

A sad Mgr Nicolas Djombo, CENCO president, painted a frightening state of the country at the moment: "The image we're evincing is that of a bullet train headed straight against a wall!"

No wonder SGSR and MONUSCO Chief of Mission, Ambassador Roger Meece, held today an emergency meeting with Kabila and Tshisekedi--no doubt to ask both sides to hold their horses. According to Radio-Trottoir, the powwow was all about Meece attempting to convince defeated Kabila to agree to a Kenya-like power-sharing arrangement with Tshisekedi! (BTW, the fetid swamp of rumors that Kinshasa and the rest of the country have become should serve as a warning for worse to come to politicians who forget to prioritize education and public libraries in government's investment budgets.)

In the streets, Kinois are convinced they are witnessing the biggest electoral fraud in the recorded history of the event. "Mulunda is making up numbers as he goes along," I heard today a Kinois angrily say of CENI chair. "A fucking numerologist!"

On Kasa-Vubu Avenue in Kalamu Commune, two young mechanics repairing a lemon were exercised at the sight of a heavily-armed riot police patrol jeep--these patrols are ubiquitous now. They were particularly outraged at the (false) rumor of a curfew in Kinshasa starting at 9 pm tonight (Monday). "They think we're gonna fight at night?," one of them sneered. "We'll hit them in broad daylight!" The pair also told me that Rev Mulunda will be announcing the provisional final results tonight at midnight plus 1 second (!), which would be Tuesday (I couldn't verify this claim, though it's widely held citywide)...

Some of these rumors even made evening news on Radio France Internationale--like the one alleging that 3 thousand Kinois have already fled to neighboring Brazzaville to weather the storm of Tshisekedi's fatwa. These rumors are so out of hand that the government had ordered at one point mobile phone service providers to shut down their SMS functions! A worrisome precedent in a country courted by China!...

The funniest comment I heard today was in Bandalungwa commune. It came from a disgruntled pro-Tshisekedi woman, a shopkeeper, who wrongly thinks she'd been disenfranchised by Rev Mulunda. She angrily waved off an evangelical street preacher who was attempting to pull an Allelujah-for-money stunt in front of her shop, and yelled after the confused Man-of-God:

"You, mofo, I don't believe in protestant pastors anymore! Vote-riggers! Thieves! Crooks! Satanists! Numerologists! I'm going back to the fold of the Catholic Church!"

I was tempted to remind the good woman that the once much-maligned Appolinaire Malu-Malu, the predecessor of Mulunda who presided over the 2006 election, is a Catholic priest: he was also called a "vote-rigger," a "satanist," and a "numerologist"! But I looked around and smelled insurgency in the crowded corner of the street. And I suddenly remembered I was a Swahili-speaker who, in the eyes of the Kinois these days, is worse than Lucifer: a Rwandan clone to be expurged from the People's Republic of Kinshasa!

1) Kengo wa Dondo mugged in Paris by doppelganger anticitizens; and 2) Tshisekedi discovers the "Arcana Imperii"

2012-01-03T07:31:00.001-05:00

1) Kengo wa Dondo mugged in Paris by doppelganger anticitizens

Pro-Tshisekedi doppelganger anticitizens mugged former presidential
candidate and Senate President Léon Kengo wa Dondo at Paris Gare du
Nord in the evening of Saturday, December 31, 2011. Kengo, who was on
private visit, had just arrived by train from Belgium.

As Kengo was entering the hired limo awaiting him, he was spotted by
pro-Tshisekedi Congolese Paris residents who spontaneously jumped him.
The limo driver then took off, careening into the traffic where
unfortunately the vehicle was then stuck into the massive traffic jam
of Paris rush hour (after 5 p.m.). In hot pursuit, the couple of dozen
Congolese "informal sovereigns" soon caught up with Kengo's vehicle
and resumed their violent beating. By the time French cops arrived on
the scene of the attack, Kengo was unconscious, bleeding profusely,
with several broken or missing teeth!

DRC authorities angrily reacted to the vicious attack and DRC Foreign
Minister summoned on New Year's Day Kinshasa French Ambassador for an
explanation for what Congolese authorities describe as the cavalier
manner in which Western authorities treat aggressions against
Congolese officials overseas. As of this writing, Kengo is still being
treated at a Paris hospital.

2) Tshisekedi discovers the "Arcana Imperii"

It now becomes apparent that, after swearing himself in irrelevancy,
Etienne Tshisekedi is now discovering the hard way what Roberto
Calasso called the "Arcana Imperii" in his famous book entitled "The
Ruin of Kasch," that is, the mysteriously elusive ascent or genealogy
of power.

In his New Year's message to the Congolese nation, Tshisekedi bemoaned
the fact that he still lacked the "imperium" necessary to exercise
power (the imperium being, according to Webster's, "the right to
command or to employ the force of the state: SOVEREIGNTY"). Tshisekedi
then begged security forces personnel to abandon Kabila in order to
allow him to get the much needed "imperium."

Well, this is a way of acknowledging that the only legitimacy he
wields lies in his own head and in the mind of his tribal diehard
followers.

Anyway, Radio France Internationale (RFI) has temporarily lost its FM
signals in DRC for covering Tshisekedi's New Year's message to the
nation. According to Communication Minister Lambert Mende, RFI is
sowing confusion in the mind of Congolese by continuing to entertain
Tshisekedi's unconstitutional "pantalonnade" (slapstick comedy)...

Stampede at Kinshasa Western Union outlets

2012-01-01T12:18:00.001-05:00

This past week saw a stampede at Kinshasa Western Union
outlets--culminating on New Year's Eve when they were thronged by
Kinois who got remittances from family members living overseas.

Yesterday, a member of my household who got $100 from Lexington,
Kentucky, and $150 from Bukavu (!) spent 4 long hours in queue
before being served--and this after trying 2 other overcrowded Western
Union outlets.

A couple of years back, a DRC Central Bank official put an annual
estimate of the size of these remittances at more than $2b! In other
words, if Congolese exiles were to stop the injection of these
remittances, DRC's fragile economy could bottom out overnight. That's
all the more reason to give Congolese expats furtther rights (like the
right of dual nationality) and a say in domestic politics (the right
of voting at DRC's embassies and consulates).

In the meantime, Western Union is doing brisk business in
Kinshasa--with ubiquitous outlets all over the Congolese capital--as
well as in other parts of the country.

Correction: 2 Sisters of Jean-Pierre Bemba elected in Equateur

2011-12-30T02:37:00.001-05:00

In the previous post I incorrectly wrote that Jean-Pierre Bemba's wife
was elected MP in Equateur. It was instead two sisters of the jailed
MLC leader who were elected.

CENI releases partial legislative results: Conservation Minister José Endundo defeated in Equateur

2011-12-29T11:29:00.000-05:00

The board of the independent national electoral commission (CENI)
started releasing partial legislative election results yesterday,
Wednesday, December 28, on prime time TV. Further results are expected
today evening.

This follows a one-week freeze of CENI's activities ordered by its
board. CENI had then requested the participation of electoral experts
from the U.S. and Britain in the wake of the outcry over presidential
election results. American experts are due to arrive by this week's
end whereas their British and African counterparts are expected to get
here next week.

According to CENI Chair Rev Daniel Ngoy Mulunda, who, along the other
members of the electoral board, stands by the presidential election
results, the role of the foreign experts--all of whom are "electoral
statisticians"--will be to ensure the transparency and the fairness of
results in contentious electoral constituencies. UDPS was quick to
dismiss the move as a gimmick, with Albert Moleka, Tshisekedi's chief
of staff, suggesting that a rational methodology would require that
the experts also take into account the results of the presidential
elections. Some other opposition leaders went even further, charging
that CENI gave itself a full week to perfect the fraud of giving the
"Presidential Majority" (MP) the majority win it needs to form the
next government, as required by the constitution.

The partial results released yesterday were for parts of the
constituencies of Bandundu, Bas-Congo, Equateur, Kasai Oriiental, the
Kivus, and Orientale.

The headline of yesterday's partial results was the following:

1) The wife of Jean-Pierre Bemba, the MLC leader jailed at The Hague,
won in the constituency of Gemena, in Equateur.

2) Prime Minister Adolphe Muzito was easily re-elected in his
constituency of Kikwit (Bandundu) on PALU list.

3) Still in Bandundu, Aubin Minaku, Secretary General of the
Presidential Majority coaltion, was elected in his stronghold of
Idiofa.

4) UDPS won both seats in the Kasai constituencies--as well as two
seats in the Kivus. ( The question in people's minds is whether the
incoming UDPS MPs would boycott the incoming National Assembly, join
the open rebellion of Tshisekedi, and thereby forfeiting their
astronomical $7,000 monthly parliamentary salaries!)

4) Astonishingly, Konde Vila Kikanda, a native of Bas-Congo Province,
came in first in the constituency of Goma, in Northern Kivu Province!
This oddity can be explained by the fact that Kikanda was the governor
of Northern Kivu in the Mobutu regime. People in Kivu still have a
vivid memory of Kikanda as a competent and uncorruptible governor.
(And, by the way, the current governor, Julien Paluku, was also
elected on the list of RCD-KLM.)

5) Orientale Gov Auchai was elected in his conatituency of Aru, in
northern Orientale.

6) In Equateur, current governor, Jean-Claude Baende was elected. But
some formidable foes of Kabila were also elected or re-elected. Former
Equateur governor, José Makila, was elected. And MLC stalwart, MP
Jean-Lucien Busa, who single-handedly nearly brought down Prime
Minister Adolphe Muzito, was re-elected.

7) Still in Equateur, Portfolio Minister Jeannine Mabunda was
re-elected in her constituency of Bumba.

8) The most terrible mews from Equateur is the crushing defeat
suffered by Environment and Nature Conservation Minister José Endundo,
who has done much to raise the profile of conservation from the
backwater where it had been kept for long.

***

In an unrelated development, the ban on text messages imposed on
December 3 by the Deputy Premier and Interior Minister Adolphe Lumanu
on the pretext of preventing the spread of rumors was lifted
yesterday--with effect as of today. I got an SMS today from my
carrier, VODACOM, advising that SMS are once again "operarional" as of
today and I got to send my first 10 text messages free of charges.
Mobile phone carriers are requesting compensations from the government
over the shutdown. This stupid move by Adolphe Lumanu is worrisome--as
well as the unacknwoledged repeated interruptions of internet
connections whenever riots erupt.

Larry Devlin, Congo CIA Chief of Station: in his own words

2011-12-27T18:26:00.003-05:00

The People's Republic of Kinshasa: "A bullet train headed straight against the wall" (Mgr Nicolas Djombo)

2011-12-27T18:26:00.001-05:00

The People's Republic of Kinshasa: "A bullet train headed straight against the wall" (Mgr Nicolas Djombo)

2011-12-27T18:22:00.001-05:00

Larry Devlin, Congo CIA Chief of Station: in his own words

2011-12-27T18:21:00.001-05:00

The People's Republic of Kinshasa: "A bullet train headed straight against the wall" (Mgr Nicolas Djombo)

2011-12-27T18:19:00.001-05:00

In response to Mel's comment to my previous post

2011-12-24T19:01:00.001-05:00

It's so strange that you, of all people, would not give me the benefit
of the doubt, that I could be speaking from personal political
conviction--however wrongheaded this choice might seem to you. Once
again, I don't belong to Kabila's propaganda machine and if I did I
would be directing my energies to writing pamphlets for the Congolese
domestic audience and in French. Besides, I'd be living large in Kin,
not bumming survival money from my US-based family or wasting precious
time of enjoying the many bounties of the Congolese capital in dreary
business consultancy for my friends who own small businesses in
Kinshasa. I have a witness from London, a reader of this blog, who
recently visited Kin: he can back my claim--he saw me operate in Kin
and even met my boss at one of the businesses where I work as a
consultant...

This being said, I think you need a refresher class on the history of
American-Congolese relations of the 1960s. There are a few scholarly
books on the subject--both in English and French. There are also
scholarly works in French that point to Tshisekedi's responsibility in
Lumumba's demise. As for Tshisekedi's statements to the European press
after the hanging in 1966 of Prime Minister Evariste Kimba and his
companions, there are contemporaneous TV footages that still exist.
You are a scholar, or so I thought: do your work of a sleuth!

So, before making sweeping statements, you better have your facts
straight and backed by solid evidence.

Anyway, the CIA actively planned the assassination of Patrice
Lumumba--though at the last minute Belgian operatives carried out the
actual assassination. At one point, Langley even dispatched to
Léopoldville (Kinshasa) one Dr Gotlieb, a professional assassin who
was supposed to inject into Lumumba's toothpaste a potent poison whose
effects would have mimicked symptoms of a violent malarial bout. This
also figures in the Congressional records--a Commission to investigate
attempted assassinations of foreign leaders was even set up (in the
early 1970s if I'm not mistaken).

So I did have my facts straight before saying that the US lacked the
moral creditt to lecture Congo TODAY on democracy when it is a matter
of public record that it once actively attempted to assassinate
Congo's first democratically-elected Prime Minister, Patrice Emery
Lumumba.

Tshisekedi's bloody trail & the farce of lecture on democracy by the West

2011-12-24T16:13:00.001-05:00

A startling irony of the much overlooked DRC history is that the venue
of Martyrs Stadium where Tshisekedi insisted on staging his
swearing-in farce is the very site where one Prime Minister and three
ministers where hanged on trumped-up conspiracy charges called
"Pentecost Conspiracy" in 1966--a conspiracy hatched in the criminal
minds of Mobutu and his then right-hand man, Interior Minister Etienne
Tshisekedi, in order to do away with the remnants of President Joseph
Kasa-Vubu's regime they had toppled in 1965.

(Tshisekedi's long-running role as Mobutu's top henchman goes back to
the early days of DRC independence--including the arrest and
assassination by proxy of Prime Minister Patrice Emery Lumumba in
1961. The US, which actively conspired in planning the assassination
of Congo's first democratically-elected Premier Lumumba, lacks today
the moral credit to lecture the DRC on democracy. No wonder Secretary
Hillary Clinton was pressing Congolese students to forget the past and
to move on... Only in the Congo would one see such travesty: the very
power that assisted in the demise of a country's founding father
lecturing the surviving citizens of that country without first
apologizing for its horrendous crime!)

Well, the exact place where the quickly-erected scaffold stood would
be somewhere right in the middle of the pitch of the stadium the
Chinese built several years after the state murders co-sponsored by
Tshisekedi. It is rumored that neither Tshisekedi nor Mobutu attended
the opening ceremony of the new stadium for fear of being confronted
by the ghosts of Prime Minister Evariste Kimba and his erstwhile three
ministers (incidentally, Premier Kimba was from the Katanga Province:
just to show that Katanga would never vote for Tshisekedi). On that
grim day, just after the hanging, a freak whirl of dust sent a wave of
panic through the throng of Kinois who attended the grisly event. This
triggered a stampeded that claimed a half-dozen victims trampled to
death. In the minds of the Kinois cheering the hanging, the whirl was
caused by the escaping souls of Kimba and his companions who were
hellbent on taking a few souls with them to the beyond as retribution
for being at the hanging. (Don't laugh at this seemingly benign
superstition. Four years ago, West-African and Angolan residents of
Kinshasa had to seek police protection as they were under the threat
of being lynched by mobs of Kinois men on suspicion of making their
penises vanish!)

But what is more outrageous is what Interior Minister Tshisekedi then
told the international media to rationalize after the fact the grisly
public murders of Kimba and his companions. The person of the chief is
sacred in Africa, said Tshisekedi, and the mere fact that the four
"Pentecost Conspirators" met to discuss about ending Mobutu's rule
qualified as a capital crime. (By the way, the four innocent men never
met, let alone discuss the end of Mobutu's fledgeling dictatorahip.)
This was an overwhelming reason of state to have the four top senior
government officials and political leaders to be court-martialed and
hanged, Tshisekedi forcefully argued. He angrily brushed off the
suggestion by the international media interviewing him after the
murders that it would have likewise been an overwhelming reason of
state to have the four "Pentecost Conspirators" pardoned. How the man
could sleep at night is beyond me...

And yet, this is the kind of a political blood-drenched
repeat-offender that a section of historically-challenged or
tribally-motivated Congolese wants to see at the helm of DRC. And some
Western countries--including the US--want to drive through the tiny
wedge presented by some "irregularities" having no bearing whatsoever
on the actual outcome of the elections their own national agenda: the
competion with China over Congo's resources for one. For had they been
serious about democracy, they should been lecturing Rwanda day in day
out. Or Saudi Arabia for that matter. But American oil addiction would
undoubtedly prevent Secretary Clinton to deliver such a fool-hardy
lecture to the "petrodictators" (Thomas L. Friedman) of the Middle
East.

Is something nefarious afoot? Is an assassination of Joseph Kabila
being contemplated? This wouldn't be the product of the frenzied
imagination of a paranoid! It's not like they haven't done it before,
have they? Everyone knows that the "worth of life" of African leaders
has always been, well, worthless in Western political inner circles...

UDPS looses Baluba youth gangs upon Kinshasa

2011-12-23T11:11:00.001-05:00

(This post is emailed via mobile phone after much delay: internet
connexion was cut off during the riots.)

Tshisekedi was planning his mock swearing-in ceremony on Friday,
December 23, at 11:00 Hours Kinshasa Time (GMT + 1) at Martyrs Stadium
in Kinshasa (in my previous post I mistakenly identified the venue as
Tata Raphaël Stadium). But that didn't happen. For one, the Republican
Guard has been surrounding the stadium with tanks for several days
now. Secondly, a heavy police deployment was able to disperse the
throng of Baluba youth gangs that had had responded to UDPS call to
show up at the Martyrs Stadium.

The disturbance was limited to neighborhoods in the vicinity of the
Stadium--that is Matonge, close to Tata Raphaël Stadium, and parts of
Lingwala neighborhood, nearby Martyrs Stadium.

The Baluba youth were chanting in Lingala: "We will die for
Tshisekedi! The people first! We'll drive Kabila back to Rwanda where
he belongs!"

But that tribal resolve was quickly blown away by the conflagrations
of flash grenades lobbed by riot cops. The retreating Baluba gangs
then looted a few beer depots in the Kauka quarter in Kalamu Commune.

I was in Matonge in Kalamu Commune near Tata Raphaëel Stadium (in fact
I'm writing this from that neighborhood) during the disturbance and I
only saw Baluba youth being arrested, then released by the police. I
didn't see one single member of UDPS leadership among those arrested.
Which goes a long way to show the cowardice of the UDPS leadership.

Primary schools that had opened for the day were stuck with kids that
had to wait for their parents to pick them up amid gunfire and flash
grenade reports in quarters close to the Martyrs Stadium.

It might be dawning on Kinois that UDPS is at its core a tribal party.
And those Kinois I spoke to--especially students' parents--are mad at
the mayhem inleashed by Baluba youth today. Fortunately, by 14:00
Hours, restive neighborhoods had been pacified by the police.

I'm sipping a crisp cold Skol beer right now at a sidewalk bar in
Matonge. Baluba drinking at the next table claim Tshisekedi has just
been sworn in at his Limete residence. The question I can't ask them
is the following: if he knew all along he'd be sworn in Baluba
President of Limete, why all this senseless charade in other Kinshasa
neighborhoods?

Kabila sworn in Prez with Robert Mugabe in attendance

2011-12-20T07:23:00.001-05:00

The swearing-in ceremony of Joseph Kabila as DRC president took place
this morning at the Cité de l'Union Africaine, in Ngaliema Commune, in
Kinshasa. The ceremony was carried out live by RTNC, the
government-owned broadcasting system.

Besides the Western ambassadors accredited to Kinshasa (including the
US Ambassador), Zim Prez Robert Mugabe was the only head of state in
attendance. The other remarkable guests included the South African
Foreign Minister, the prime ministers of South Sudan and Rwanda as
well as representatives of other African countries.

Presidential candidates Dr Oscar Kashala and Léon Kengo wa Dondo were
also present--the latter in the capacity of President of the outgoing
Senate. CENI board members were present--with the notable exception of
their chair, Rev Daniel Ngoy Mulunda.

Another glaring absence was that of Kinshasa Cardinal Laurent Mosengwo
who had deemed CENI results fake. The Catholic prelate is conveniently
at the Vatican on official Church business trip.

In his inaugural address, Kabila bemoaned the "wild promises inderlied
by heinous speeches" uttered by some presidential candidates. This is
a not so veiled allusion to presidential candidate Etienne Tshisekedi
who kept describing Kabila as a Rwandan citizen throughout the
preaidential campaign.

In fact, Tshisekedi doesn't recognize the re-election of Kabila and
has vowed to have his own swearing-in ceremony on Friday at Tata
Raphaël Stadium, the venue of the historic Rumble-in-the-jungle boxing
match. No one knows how Tshisekedi could possibly stage this Mexican
standoff. The stadium is surrounded by army tanks and his Limete
neighborhood is sealed by cops. Besides, Kinois, who paid a hefty
price in the wake of the publication of the election results (the
official death toll stands at 10 victims), want to put this election
controversy behind them and move on.

DRC Supreme Court of Justice finds Vital Kamerhe's petition groundless & proclaims Kabila Prez

2011-12-17T04:10:00.001-05:00

The Supreme Court of Justice ( CSJ) proclaimed on Friday December 16
Joseph Kabila as winner of the November 28 presidential election. The
Court in fact confirmed the figures of the provisional results
released earlier by the national electoral commission (CENI).

Vital Kamerhe was the sole presidential candidate to file a petition
Monday to the Supreme Court requesting that the elections be simply
voided.

The formal hearing on Kamerhe's petition at the Supreme Court was held
on Thursday and broadcast later on national TV. Kamerhe's 21-member
legal team was led by Maître Jean-Joseph Mukendi wa Mulumba, ertswhile
Tshisekedi's spokesman.

The proceedings failed to produce the smoking gun of vote rigging but
instead hinged on procedural legalese, especially a provision in
Article 73 of the Electoral Law mandating that a petition be notified
to "the candidate whose election is contested, to the political parti
or political group that presented a candidate as well as to the
national independent electoral commission." This, according to
Kamerhe's lawyers, meant that all the other presidential candidates
had to be present in Court. An interpretation the Supreme Court
rejected, arguing that the other candidates had not filed petitions!
Exercised by this ruling, Kamerhe and his lawyers walked out of the
Court. They then told the press that they only went to the Supreme
Court to demonstrate the "dysfunction" of the Congolese justice system
and the fact that the Supreme Court is a "vassal of the
powers-that-be."

On Friday, the Supreme Court found Kamerhe's petition groundless for
"lack of proof" and proclaimed Kabila president with the same numbers
given by the embattled electoral commission.

Friday's final ruling by the Supreme Court was met with general
indifference in the streets where the sense of the inevitability of
Kabila's re-election has finally sunk in. No one knows, however,
Tshisekedi's next political move. A list of the ghost cabinet of
Tshisekedi that has been circulating proved to be fake. But UDPS has
called for demos on December 20, when Kabila will be sworn in for his
new 5-year term in office.