Gombe Commune hours before his return to Bujumbura via Nairobi)
***
Pro-Kabila presidential supporters were celebrating over the week's
end the historic election of Uhuru Kenyatta as the fourth president
of Kenya--a collective national middle finger shown at the West.
Kinshasa oppositionists were instead dreaming to see on Monday
afternoon the re-enactment for Etienne Tshisekedi of what Radio France
Internationale (RFI) had billed as the"triumphant" homecoming Saturday
of Burundi's radical oppositionist Alexis Sinduhije to Bujumbura after
a two-year self-imposed exile.
Excitement was already building up in the past week with leaflets
announcing the return to Kinshasa of the "presidential couple"
(Tshisekedi and wife Maman Marthe) after a few weeks stay in South
Africa.
Rumors spread by pro-Kabila forces had it that the UDPS leader,
crippled by many an ailment, had gone for medical checkup and
"intensive treatment" in South Africa.
The dream of pro-Tshisekedi was however nipped in the bud upon
touchdown at N'Djili International Airport of the aircraft carrying
the UDPS leader.
Tshisekedi's supporters, who faced a formidable deployment of riot
police at major city intersections, were mercilessly tear-gassed at
the airport and in the neighborhood of Tshisekedi's residence in
Limete.
About two dozen Tshiskedists were apprehended for what Kinshasa police
commissioner, General Jean-de-Dieu Oleko, called "traffic violations"!
After a brief rest at the VIP lounge, Tshisekedi was then whisked to
his residence at breakneck speed--with an escort of about 6 SUVs,
including, according to eyewitnesses, one belonging to MONUSCO.
Radio Okapi claims that a police driver had taken control of the SUV
that chauffeured Tshisekedi to his residence.
The leaflets dropped throughout the city were also announcing a rally
by Tshisekedi in front of the Palais du Peuple, the seat of
Parliament.
That didn't happen, anyway, which had pro-"President" Tshisekedi MPs
seething with anger.
MP Martin Fayulu, one of the scions of the pro-Tshisekedi movement blurted out:
"All the cops that the city of Kinshasa counts, they sent them here
[at the airport]. But why don't they send them to Kiwanja, Rutshuru or
Goma to defend our women who are being raped?"
Another MP, obviously hooked on RFI, observed:
"A radical oppositionist [Sinduhije] was given a triumphant homecoming
in Bujumbura. Why couldn't the same treatment be given to President
Tshisekedi in his hometown?"
Well, that comparison doesn't hold water.
For one, Sinduhije went back to Bujumbura on a UN-brokered dialogue
between the government and the opposition.
What's more, Sinduhije is a vibrant young rational party leader, not a
slobbering ailing old geezer, high on medications, who'd proclaimed
himself from his deathbed as the president of the Republic of Burundi!
***
PHOTO: Alex Engwete
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