(PHOTO 2: Smoke billows from Kabila's PPRD party headquarters torched
today by student rioters in Kisangani)
***
Sources in Goma called me to let me know that M23 military spokesman,
Vianney Karazama, has just ended a long anti-Kabila rant on DRC
government-owned radio station.
(Maybe fleeing government troops were busy attempting to loot
businesses to even think about something called "scorched earth.")
In his tirade, Karazama called Kabila names, claiming for instance
that the Congolese Prez was a "bhang smoker" who didn't take seriously
the country's security situation--failing to mobilize the country in
the face of the clear and present danger that M23 represent!
Given this kind of laxity and incompetence, said Karazama, M23 have
but one option left: to depose the president!
Karazama was also calling the entire population of Goma and government
soldiers who'd deserted to attend a rally tomorrow at the football
stadium where M23 will lay out their mission statement.
My sources told me they wouldn't attend that rally and feel that they
have been let down by Kinshasa.
A sentiment echoed by other Goma residents, one of whom told Radio Okapi:
"I never thought M23 would ever be able to take control of our city!"
In fact, the entire nation is reeling from the fall of Goma.
People are particularly angry at Kabila who, in his TV appearance this
afternoon, seemed to be taking things in strides.
Kabila's call for the nation to "mobilize against the aggression of
which the DRC is a victim, notably at Goma" even angered Kinois more
as he didn't lash out at Rwanda and Paul Kagame.
The last straw was when Kabila said: "when war is imposed, one has got
the obligation to resist!"
"You, sir, had the obligation to resist centuries ago!" a man angrily
reacted amid cheers to the presidential address in a Kinshasa downtown
restaurant.
Even Kabila's announcement afterward of the recall of the DRC
ambassador to Kigali fell on deaf ears, especially as it was already
announced he'd be flying to Kampala to meet with another bogeyman,
President Yoweri Museveni--the current chair of the International
Conference for the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR)--who's been cited as one
of the major culprits of the Kivu crisis in the still to be published
Final Report by the UN Group of Experts.
Congolese have simply had enough of what they term as the "defeatism"
of the Kabila government that often entails talks and negitiations
with Rwanda, Uganda, their proxies, and their sponsors--that is, the
international community, chief among whom is the United States, and
its representative on the ground: MONUSCO.
People are particularly angry at the fact that the international
community is arming Rwanda while crippling the DRC with an injust arms
embargo.
People are now spoiling for a fight with M23, Rwanda, and all those
who side with them.
And those siding with Rwanda include their own head of state and MONUSO.
That's why thousands of student rioters went after Kabila's party PPRD
headquarters and MONUSCO in Kisangani and Bunia in Orientale Province.
In Bunia, rioters burned two MONUSCO jeeps and pelted its compounds
with stones, Radio Okapi reports.
In Kinshasa, as Radio Okapi quipped, "the police and the rain
dispersed rioters." That doesn't mean however that those riots are
over in the capital city.
***
PHOTO CREDITS: Via: www.radiookapi.net
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