Rev. Jean-Paul Moka goes feral on Yves De Moor who exposes his cons

(PHOTO: Scanned copy of Rev. Jean-Paul Moka's Belgian passport)

***

Rev. Jean-Paul Moka has chosen to go feral these days on anyone who is daring to expose his cons.

And chief among those exposing Moka's malfeasances is Belgian whistleblower Yves De Moor, whom Moka is now accusing of pedophilia, by using broken links to fake articles penned by a fictional French journalist called Lesage of the newsmagazine L'Express.

But the poor syntax and the horrendous style of Moka-qua-Lesage won't fool anyone.

Be that as it might, and without downplaying the horrible crime that pedophilia represents, I wonder how the supposed pedophilia of De Moor would automatically expunge the string of cons perpetrated by Moka on unsuspecting victims.

Moka is also going about these days with what he calls "Right of Reply" whenever a negative article is published about him.

The problem with his right-of-reply texts is that they are strewn with lies.

For instance, in one recent such right of reply posted on the website of Roger Bongos's Afrique Rédaction, Moka had a half-dozen straw men sign with him an affidavit-like statement that he's still fully a Congolese citizen. Which is a lie, as evinced by the scanned copy of Moka's passport above. The Constitution of the DRC is quite specific about citizenship: there's no such thing as dual citizenship; you relinquish your Congolese nationality by being naturalized a citizen of another country.

There's only one way for people like me to stop hounding Moka and to leave him alone: He should stop conning people the world over that he is a DRC "presidential hopeful" as he claimed in Tel Aviv in April of this year in one of his cons called "The United States of Africa."

(To Be Continued)

Read More

PROFILE: Rev. Jean-Paul Moka, a Belgian Confidence Man born in the Congo (First in an Occasional Series)

(PHOTO: Rev. Jean-Paul Moka is nabbed by Brussels cops for disorderly conduct in 2011. YouTube video screen capture by Alex Engwete)

***

In the evening of Tuesday, September 20, 1988, in one of the conference rooms of the sprawling Harvard University campus near Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts,  a motley group of about twenty black students and activists had convened a press conference for the launch of a new, nebulous group calling itself "Aids for South African Students (ASAS)."

The "president of the new group," wrote reporter Liam T. A. Ford who was covering the event for the Harvard University daily student newspaper The Harvard Crimson, was "Kennedy School student Moka Ngolo Mpati."

 

Moka, who hailed from Kinshasa, Zaire, and who had just barely turned 23 a  month earlier, had singlehandedly managed to garner the support of several black students, including one Saths Cooper, who was the head of the likewise obscure "South African Zanani Movement (SAZM)"--an organization he claimed was representing "about three-quarters of Black South African students studying in the United States" at the time.

The political agenda of Moka's organization was all but nonexistent, whereas its fundraising objectives were lofty and apparently devoid of any built-in accountability mechanism.

But in those waning years of the second term of the divisive presidency of Ronald Reagan, with the anti-apartheid "divestment movement" sweeping through American colleges and universities, the spiel of anyone showing up on campus grounds to advocate in behalf of the disenfranchised black South African people would readily fall on sympathetic ears.

Moka and the others in the group, reported Ford, were keen to just "concentrate on raising money for [school] materials to send to South Africa."

Adding:

"ASAS members plan to raise money and buy school materials, such as computers, science textbooks and paper, then ship them to schools that either the Harvard Graduate School of Education or SAZM has targeted as needy, Mpati said. Group leaders also said they hoped to send U.S. teachers to South Africa to work in Black schools and to help train Black South African teachers."

Oddly enough, despite this apparently grandiose mission statement and high-profile launch within the prestigious precinct of Harvard University, Moka, conspicuously, wanted to keep his organization under the radar, according to Ford:

"ASAS does not plan to become an official Harvard organization, Mpati said, because it hopes to become a national group working to improve the education of South African students.

"'We are for students at many U.S. universities, not just one,'Mpati said."

There's no other documented account on the internet of the history of this organization set up by Rev. Jean-Paul Moka in 1988. 

In hindsight it's striking, however, that ASAS evinces the same modus operandi as subsequent other charity confidence games pulled off by Moka decades later--including his "Marshall Plan for the DRC," to which I have already alluded on this blog on more than one occasion and which I'll touch upon again in one of the upcoming installments of this occasional series.

What's more, ASAS' narrow objective on fundraising--i.e. money in plain English--happens to be similar to most common charity scams set up in the Congo even today.

It therefore stands to reason to infer that Aids for South African Students (ASAS) was the first charity confidence game ever created and staged by Moka.

And its simple method serves as the blueprint for all the other scams that Moka would pull off in his three-decade career of a confidence man:

1. Identify a worthwhile cause able to stir empathy among people of good will. The more outlandish the cause, the better. 

(In the 1980s, the universal popular cause young Moka identified and tapped in was helping the victims of the apartheid regime in South Africa. And nowadays, Rev. Moka bets on the DRC, which has fallen victim to cyclical wars. Scavenging on victimhood is thus the favorite stock in trade of Moka in his confidence games.)

2. Set up a bogus organization that would sustain the fundraising drive.

One has to give the devil his due: In his grifts, Moka has always been keen to aim high when choosing his "marks" (or victims) or setting up his operations (bogus banks, phony presidential campaigns, fake run for the chairmanship of the electoral commission, etc.)

For example, no one really knows what had transpired between Moka and Ms. Kim Reed, who served as the 2008 Obama campaign's senior advisor for Democrats Abroad.

But it seems that Moka had somehow bamboozled Reed into a confidence game  involving the DRC.

In any event, by February 2011, the exiled Congolese opposition journalist and blogger Roger Bongos was investigating Moka, who at the time was attempting to assert himself as the leader of the DRC opposition abroad--and boasting to be connected with Obama and Reed. 

When Bongos wrote to Reed to get her opinion on her alleged fruitful collaboration with Moka, he got this acrimonious reply: 

"Thank you for your email. I am glad you are continuing to pursue justice for your countrymen. 

"I am not, unfortunately, in a position to help.  I have been greatly harmed by Jean-Paul Moka (who owes me a great deal of money and turned out to have lied to me about almost everything), and I simply cannot use my personal contacts and reputation again on DRC politics. My contacts have been built up over 20 years of very hard work, and I will not further risk my reputation for a venture that could lose money for my contacts and for me.  

"The very unfortunate result of my experience with Moka is that I do not trust anyone involved in DRC politics right now --please do not take this personally, it has nothing to do with you or your integrity--I have had an extremely negative and painful experience with Moka and I must step back from DRC right now. 

"I continue to care deeply about the plight of the Congolese people, but I cannot risk my family's well-being and my professional reputation again.  I am sorry and wish you the best of luck.

"Best regards, 

"Kim Reed"

Thus, Moka is most definitely not a sympathetic and likable con artist out there to correct, through confidence games, injustices inflicted by the powerful ones or the crooks upon ordinary people--the kind of memorable vigilante grifters you'd encounter in TV series like "Hustle" (BBC) or "Leverage" (TNT). He's a sociopath whose victims are real, decent people who may never recover from his cons.

And it needs to be stressed, as I mentioned hitherto, that Moka still refers to his former victims as his "friends" who could recommend him when he introduces himself to new potential marks he'd be casing.

Moka still goes around telling people he's got the email address of Obama... on Gmail! An email address he got from Kim Reed...

Moka had the balls to tell that Obama Gmail lie to one of his most recent marks in the grift called "Marshall Plan for the DRC," Dr. Faustin Mukela Luanga, a Congolese economist based in Zurich, Switzerland, where he works for the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Luanga told me he dared Moka to have Obama send an actual email to him, Luanga. Unbelievably, a handle called "Obama" readily sent an email to Luanga. But unfortunately for Moka, Luanga is Internet-savvy and confronted the con artist with the Brussels IP address of the fake Obama.

Uncannily, Moka kept insisting with a straight face that it was the real-deal, genuine Obama who'd sent the phony email. 

"Well, could be that Obama sent the email while he was on a trip to Belgium then?" Luanga told Moka with utter contempt before breaking up his collaboration with the confidence man...

That's why one has to take with a grain salt Moka's claim that he studied at the Kennedy School--his only proof nowadays for that claim being the single mention of his name in The Harvard Crimson. The man lies like a rug, after all.

Be that as it may, let's go back to that very earliest known scam of Moka at Harvard University and from there, fast forward to 10 years after the launch of that bogus group Aid for South African Students (ASAS)... to Friday, January 29, 1999, when the London tabloid The Mirror reported:

"A trickster commuted by Eurostar to fleece two councils out of thousands of pounds in housing benefit, a court heard yesterday. 

"Jean-Paul Moka Ngolo Mpati, 33, made the trip from Belgium every fortnight for seven months to defraud cash-strapped Hounslow and Harringey councils in London. 

"He used a stack of false documents to get benefit on two houses, one in his name and another under a created identity, the Old Bailey heard. He was arrested at a JobCentre a in Hounslow and was carrying bogus tenancy agreements. 

"Mpati - a Belgian national born in the Congo - denies eight specimen charges of obtaining pounds 4,653 by deception. He said one of the claimants was his twin brother. The case continues."

That case was continued to Tuesday February 1, 1999, when Moka was finally convicted and sentenced as reported in the crime beat section of The Guardian of Wednesday February 2, 1999:

"Benefit thief is jailed

A man who travelled from Brussels by Eurostar every fortnight to claim housing benefit was jailed yesterday for 18 months. Jean Paul Moka Ngola Mpati, aged 33, a Belgian national born in the Congo, had no address in the UK but used false names to claim housing benefit from Hounslow borough council, in west London."

Reading about these accounts of the benefit thefts perpetrated by Moka on two London councils 15 years ago, a detail leaps out: by 1999, Moka was already naturalized Belgian citizen.

Now, according to the DRC Constitution, the Congolese citizenship is "one and exclusive." 

Which means that you lose your Congolese citizenship once you get naturalized as a citizen of another country. 

Why has then Moka, a Belgian national, attempted to run for president of the DRC? And why was he eyeing the chairmanship of the Congolese independent electoral commission? Has he ever heard of Pierre-Jacques Chalupa, who Congolese authorities charged of being a self-proclaimed Congolese? Is he aware that Chalupa is doing hard time at Kinshasa Makala Prison for allegedly usurping Congolese nationality?

The simple answer to those rhetorical questions is the following: Rev. Jean-Paul Moka is a scofflaw who goes about his illicit business day in day out, till the day he's nabbed--as it happened to him in London in 1999 or in Kinshasa in 2003...

(To be continued)

Read More

Senate Prez Léon Kengo wa Dondo Causes Public Outrage By Announcing Power-Sharing In Wake Of National Consultations

(PHOTO: Léon Kengo wa Dondo electioneering in Kinshasa as presidential candidate in 2011)

***

At a gathering with opposition leaders Saturday, August 10, Senate President and newly-minted co-chair in the Presidium of the National Consultations Léon Kengo wa Dondo told the audience:

"We want [...] that all those participating [in the National Consultations] also contribute to the resolutions that could serve tomorrow as the minimal program [...] of the government [to be] issued from the National Consultations."

This statement is causing in some quarters of the opposition a stampede for what is called "personal positioning" in Congolese political lingo.

The spectacle of some diehard opposition leaders like José Makila--who've all along rejected these consultations--suddenly flip-flopping over this issue has caused public outrage.

The grapevine of Radio-Trottoir puts it bluntly: "When you see politicos of the ilk of José Makila tango like this with the Presidential Majority, then wads of greenbacks must have changed hands!"

Anyway, the reshuffle of the government of technocrats led by Premier Augustin Matata Ponyo would jeopardize all the gains made by the DRC in terms of financial good governance and budgetary restraint. 

A self-inflicted disaster in the offing, as it were, as thieves and embezzlers of all stripes would be appointed to ministerial posts and other key positions.

The leader of the pro-Kabila PPRD Caucus in the National Assembly, MP Emmanuel Ramazani Shadari (Maniema Province), quipped on Radio Okapi:

"If you say, 'Majority, Opposition, and Civil Society: Form a government!' Then, there wouldn't be any Opposition left and the Constitution would be infringed. Why go to consultations, waste money and pay hotel bills? If we want to share power, we could do so calmly right here [in Kinshasa]."

(To clarify the objection to Kengo's suggestion raised by Ramazani Shadari: The DRC Constitution mandates that the government be appointed by the President out of the majority obtained from legislative elections. Three main venues have been selected for the various gatherings of the Consultations: Kinshasa, Lubumbashi, and Kisangani. The number of participants is staggering: 450 delegates, as is the budget of the 20-day exercise: a whopping $5M!)

Radical opposition leaders and conspiracy theorists of Radio-Trottoir see in Kengo's statement a "trial balloon" prior to bamboozling the country into yet another cycle of Transition--with Joseph Kabila as president for life à la Mobutu.

The Secretary General of Vital Kamerhe's UNC party, MP Jean-Bertrand Ewanga, lashed out at Kengo in an interview with Radio Okapi, accusing the Senate president of "play[ing] a dangerous game" as the [presidential] decree was signed by Mr. Kabila for his interest and in order to boost his Majority."

Others claim that the presidential decree of June 26 has clearly defined the mission statement of the Consultations as "the gathering of all the sociopolitical strata of the Nation in order to reflect, exchange and debate, freely and without constraint, about ways and means susceptible to cement national cohesion, to reinforce and extend the authority of the state throughout the national territory with a view to putting an end to the cycles of violence in the country's eastern part, stemming any attempt at destabilizing institutions, and accelerating the country's development in peace and concord."

Though there's no mention of what Kengo called a "requalification of the majority" in the presidential decree, opportunistic politicians are stampeding through the opening made by the Senate president. And it doesn't help that Speaker Aubin Minaku, the co-chair in the Presidium, has chosen to keep mum on Kengo's outlandish statement.

At any rate, the Consultations are scheduled to start this week and last 20 days, ending before the start of the September parliamentary session. 

The "technical secretariat" is now asking the 3 "components" (Presidential Majority, Opposition, and Civil Society) to turn in the list of their delegates to the Consultations...

...

PHOTO CREDITS: Photo by John Bompengo via radiookapi.net

Read More

Gridlock in Kinshasa: Opposition Wants Dialogue Not Consultations as proposed by Kabila

(PHOTO: Erstwhile DRC Transitional Vice-President  Arthur Zahidi Ngoma in undated photo)

***

A presidential decree signed on June 26 by President Joseph Kabila was meant to create, organize, and determine the functioning of broad-based "national consultations" between all political stakeholders in the DRC--including civil society groups.

The decree also nominated a two-member "Presidium" of the consultations consisting of Aubin Minaku, speaker of the National Assembly, and Léon Kengo wa Dondo, the president of the Senate.

The Article 10 of the presidential decree retained the following 5 "thematic groups" of the "General Estates" of these consultations: 1) Governance, democracy, and institutional reforms; 2) Economy, productive sector and public finances; 3) Disarmament, demobilization, social reintegration and/or repatriation of armed groups; 4) Community conflicts, peace, and national reconciliation; and 5) Decentralization and reinforcement of state authority.

One by one, opposition parties and personalities turned the proposed "consultations" format down flat. (Oddly, Kengo had to break with his own party, which joined other opposition parties in this rejection, in order to co-chair the consultations).

Opposition parties are foremost objecting to the concept of "consultations"--concertations in French-- which, according to them, can only be carried out among people who see eye to eye.

Now, they opine, there's a fundamental gulf between the Kabila administration and the opposition ever since the general elections of November 2011 that can only bridged through "dialogue among equals."

In the wake of those elections, the opposition goes on to charge, the presidency has been marred by a "crisis of legitimacy"--an expression that makes Kabila supporters bristle with anger, for it is construed by them to be just as dysphemistic as this other favorite expression of the opposition: "electoral hold-up." 

Both of these expressions are thrown in the airwaves on a daily basis by opposition politicos in contentious radio and TV political talk shows.

To be true, Kabila's June 26 decree instituting the forum of national consultations recalls three articles of the UN Security Council Resolution 2098 (March 2013)--including Article 14, which, in its Paragraph (b) calls on the Special Representative for the DRC to "perform" among other "tasks": 

"Promote inclusive and transparent political dialogue among all Congolese stakeholders with a view to furthering reconciliation and democratization and encourage the organization of credible and transparent provincial and local elections [highlight added].

Nowhere in the paragraph above, the opposition contends, is there any mention of "consultations" whereas "political dialogue" is clearly written down and urged. 

The opposition is also accusing the Kabila camp of attempting to use these consultations as a launching pad for the constitutional change that would allow Kabila to seek other terms in office--a "de facto presidency for life," as some, including Vital Kamerhe, are clamoring. 

Since Kabila and the ruling majority will be going into this dialogue on a par with the opposition, the latter insists and wants therefore that a foreign facilitator be appointed to this 15-day forum: either President Denis Sassou Nguesso of neighboring Congo-Brazzaville or someone appointed by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

A suggestion rejected out of hand by the Kabila camp, which charges that this kind of dialogue is an attempt by the opposition to undemocratically share power (and perks) with the ruling majority--a repeat of the Transition negotiated in Sun City in 2003.

But things seem to be speeding up lately.

On Thursday, August 8, Minaku and Kengo crossed the River Congo to meet with Prez Sassou Nguesso. No one knows whether the Presidium caved in to the opposition demand to have a foreign facilitator.

Before crossing the River Congo for Brazzaville, however, the Presidium appointed the "technical secretariat" of the consultations led by  Bernard Mena Mboyo as "coordinator"--which already makes some quarters of the opposition cry foul, as Mboyo used to be the right-hand man of the late Augustin Katumba Mwanke. 

(In a 2009 US Kinshasa Embassy cable leaked by Wikileaks, Katumba Mwanke was described as "a kind of shady, even nefarious figure within Kabila's inner circle," who "is believed to manage much of Kabila's personal fortune.")

(On this cable, see: http://alexengwete.blogspot.com/2011/09/drc-elections-2011-watch-1-wikileaks_05.html?m=1)

Besides the coordinator and his deputy, the technical secretariat has 14 "thematic advisors" (including Franck Mwedi Malila Apenela, Kengo's own son-in-law) and 2 financial advisors.

Should one assume that the seemingly tight "refusal front" crafted by opposition leaders would end up making this Kabila's initiative peter out?

Hard to tell though. And the opposition wall is already showing big cracks.

While objecting to the format, some major vestigial opposition figures have nevertheless come out to pledge their participation to this forum.

They include Christian Badibangi and erstwhile transitional Vice-President Arthur Zahidi Ngoma.

I'd just hope that the "thematic advisors" would be able to rein in the extravagant oratory flourish of the likes of Zahidi Ngoma.

Here is for instance what Zahidi Ngoma said at a presser on Tuesday, August 6:

"Let's descend into the tumult of our cities  and of our diverse homelands where swirls and is moved the great human angst in search of deliverance; let's bring closer, for the fortunate confrontation where misunderstandings dissipate, the geniuses of our diverse homelands that the same destiny [...] makes inevitably united."

***

PHOTO CREDITS: Via rfi.fr

Read More

After The Boston Globe, The Washington Post: "Printed papers won't be normal in 20 years"

(PHOTO: The August 6 self-reflexive front page of The Washington Post)

***

Amazon mogul Jeff Bezos, who just bought the Washington Post for $250M, said last year in an interview with the Berliner-Zeitung:

"There is one thing I'm certain about: there won't be printed newspapers in twenty years. Maybe as luxury items in some hotels that want to offer them as an extravagant service. Printed papers won't be normal in twenty years."

(http://m.techcrunch.com/2013/08/05/bezos-in-2012-people-wont-pay-for-news-on-the-web-print-will-be-dead-in-20-years/)

By the time that prediction would come to pass, one of the favorite morning Proustian rituals in western households would have gone extinct too: the rustle of newspapers around the kitchen table; the whiff of strong coffee and toasts and omelette;....

But this kind of dire prognostication made by Bezos about printed newspapers had also often been made about printed books--and yet, "hardcopy" books are still around in this era of Bezos's own Kindle, or iPad and other tablets. And, more importantly, reading hasn't vanished altogether.

The French prolific philosopher and erstwhile Che Guevara's compadre Régis Debray says that each era is defined by its own "mediasphere"--the prevailing mode of transmission and communication.

Debray identifies 4 historical mediaspheres:

1) The Logosphere: Oral transmission;

2) The Graphosphere: Printed transmission;

3) The Videosphere: Analog transmission; and 

4) The Hypersphere: Digital transmission.

(These successive mediaspheres may be deemed specific to the West. For in the Congo, there was a mode of transmission via tom-tom that Debray's systems of transmission don't account for. I'd call the  tom-tom transmission the "sonosphere" or "percussiosphere" for lack of better neologisms.)

Though each mediasphere generates its own behavioral "wirings" in people living in its bubble,  old technologies generated in one mediasphere don't just vanish for good when a new mediasphere opens up. 

These old technologies get recycled, re-used or integrated in more creative ways.

Thus, for example, today's tablets --and computers for that matter--rediscover, re-experience, and incorporate the combined stances, gestures, and even the materiality of baked-clay tablets, scrolls, and codex (the old linear book form in hard copy).

And the sliding screens of the tablet and computer duplicates somewhat the palimpsestic writing mode or mindset of the baked-clay tablet.

But between the "bricks on the bookshelves [...] spaced out nobly in lanes of menhirs" (Jean-Paul Sartre, The Words, often quoted by Debray) of the graphosphere and the liquid, fluid, transparent hypertextual reality of the hypersphere, there's a huge gap in mentalities. 

One is linear, the other non-linear; on the one hand, the individual silence of the library; and on the other, the fleeting texting and cybersurfing in crowded spaces (the cybercafe, the corner coffee shop with Wi-Fi access, or the living-room while cable TV is on).

No wonder then that opinion polls conducted on NSA snooping exposed by Edward Snowden show that a chunk of the young demographic (18- to 29-year-olds)--those wholly immersed in Debray's hypersphere--is more concerned about "transparency" than "privacy"  (18- to 29-years-olds are used to online data mining by companies). Members of that demographic wholeheartedly support Snowden and expect more transparency from government.

(http://m.usatoday.com/article/news/2435005)

In 20 years' time, a whole western generation would've grown up "wholly immersed in Debray's hypersphere." And to claim as Bezos does that "printed papers won't be normal in 20 years," is an odd truism coming from such a visionary genius.

I keep pegging these developments as specific to the western world. Africa still has to bridge the still gaping digital divide.

In the DRC, twenty years hence, a huge section of the population will still be living in the "sonosphere" of the word-of-mouth information (WOMI) of the rumor mill of Radio-Trottoir.

In the interim, those of us connecting to the internet from the penniless boondocks of the Empire should celebrate Bezos taking over The Washington Post. The man doesn't believe that charging online users will ever balance the books of struggling newspapers. And now it's rumored he's scrapping the paywall The Washington Post was gearing for.

Kudos to Jeff Bezos then...

***

PHOTO CREDITS: Newseum (@Newseum) Twitter picture

Read More

Right of Reply: Rev. Paul Moka vs. whistleblower Yves De Moor

(PHOTO: This photo was attached to the Right-of-Reply email Rev. Paul Moka sent to me today. According to Rev. Moka, center, the two gentlemen flanking him are leaders of the Ghanian Parliament he posed with shortly after allegedly meeting with former Prez John Kufuor in Accra in 2010)

***

(The rant below is the Right of Reply penned by Rev. Paul Moka in reaction to an earlier post on this blog that implicated him in a swindle in progress, as reported to me by Belgian whistleblower Yves De Moor. I kept unedited the entirety of the right of reply, including Rev. Moka's "idiolect" and language idiosyncrasies. My comments, kept to a bare minimum, are between brackets)

***

Subject: Droit de réponse [Right of Reply]: same page and visibility (by press laws)

Dear Mr. Engwete,

Concerning your article: 

Concerning your article [of Wednesday, July 24, 2013 titled] "Whistleblower Yves De Moor to me: Jean-Paul Moka is a crook about to swindle the DRC out of $1m" [http://alexengwete.blogspot.com/2013/07/whistleblower-yves-de-moor-to-me-jean.html?m=1]

The title "about to swindle the DRC out of $1m" actually should say "about to be reimbursed by the DRC government of almost $700,000.

In fact, this is based on actual expenses made on behalf of the DRC government by my company and the DRC government has a finance ministry department and subsequent treasury specialists well versed in this type of exercise. 

Therefore let me question the assertion "Jean-Paul Moka is a crook". It actually should be asked to Mr. Yves de Moor why he's blacklisted in his native country as a "Bankrupted businessman". 

Should this be the case, as I claim and confirm to you, who should be categorized as a "crook"?  

Your article starts with this false affirmation and goes on to build on it. If the foundation of your article is false you should therefore ask the person ( Yves de Moor), who misguided you to repair the reputation of your blog and consequently your tainted talent as a " a specialist blogger on congolese politics". 

I do confirm my full curriculum and should also mention that my school years both at St Andrews University:1987-88 (St regulus hall resident: Scotland) and Harvard:1988-89 (JFK School of government: Cambridge, Mass USA) were one of the most thrilling years of my young life and were printed by some of the most exciting initiatives I took as a young leader. Please read below:http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=91991  

[This link to The Crimson is broken]

As far as Xinhua publications are concerned, as in relation to my co-mediation with president John Kufuor of Ghana. Be informed that I met and maintain excellent relationship with president John Kufuor whom I met the first time in his private residence in Accra in November 2010 (long video on this historic meeting available) and many ghanean leaders can also confirm this (please see attached my pictures [there's only one picture] with the ghanean leader of the parliament in Accra, just after my meeting with president John Kufuor). 

Be also informed that Xinhua is the official chinese governmental press and is professionally and highly controlled. All press articles related to this mediation are issued by their HQ in Brussels and Kinshasa has never been involved. 

Consequently, one should question your sources and express very serious doubt about their credibility, in particular when comparing a super power (china) press release to a "free lancer blog"...

Concerning Belga, as you well know, it is the official belgian press and they too are very credible and professional sources, in particular when talking about the ex colony, DRCongo.

They extensively covered my challenge against [National Electoral Commission Chair] appolinaire [Apollinaire] Malu Malu, as also did the local congolese press. 

Two candidates were selected, after a very laborious and long selection process and one person won against the will of his hierarchy. End of story. Please avoid minimising people's lives, credibility based on long struggles and sacrifices.

Now that there is a reconciliation between me and my brother in law, president elect Joseph Kabila Kabange, I would not wish to dig into the dirt of the past but behave like a responsible leader focusing my energies on the future and real peace amongst the congolese people. I continue to also maintain excellent relationship with the opposition who largely backed my candidacy for the CENI presidency.

As far as the Zurich summit is concered, as its chairman and CEO, let me inform you that a joint account with 3 signatures exist and all payments or fees will be managed in total transparency for its staff and leaders.

Finally and not least, my Marshall plan for the DRC now called the Moka plan, started in Kinshasa in 2001 and was also presently to prime minister Tony Blair in November 2001. Yves de Moor volunteered to join my presidential campaign team in 2011 (10 years later) and contributed like many people to it. He's never been and will never be the owner or creator of a Marshall plan for my country since all materials of my campaign belong to me.

Please be professional and publish my response with the same visibility.

Rev. Jean-Paul Moka

Copy [to]:

1. Xinhua HQ Brussels

2. Belga, Editor

3. National Assembly: political advisor to congolese national assembly

 

Read More

Kinshasa--Friday, August 2: Nothing... except that Kabila lays first stone of new government building

(PHOTO 1: Flanked by Premier Matata Ponyo and donning a yellow hard hat, Prez Joseph Kabila lays the first stone of the new 12-story "Hôtel du Gouvernement" set to house 8 government ministries--Place Royal, downtown Kinshasa, Friday, August 2)

***

(PHOTO 2: A MONUSCO Light Armored Patrol Vehicle (LAPV) is pelted with stones by demonstrators in Goma on Friday, August 2)

***

My tweet of August 3 captured the universal disappointment and exasperation felt by Kinois soon after it transpired that the much-anticipated cabinet meeting to be chaired by Kabila himself that had been slated for August 2 (see my previous post) turned out to be instead a gathering of cabinet ministers for the pedestrian business of the Raïs laying the first stone of a new 12-story government office building:

"Much ado about nothing! Prez #Kabila summoned cabinet ministers to #Kinshasa Friday for laying of the first stone of new govt building!" (https://mobile.twitter.com/alexengwete/status/363439265490804736)

People in Kin and throughout the country were expecting to see ministerial heads to roll on that fateful bloody Friday! And the whole country could hear the sigh of relief let out by cabinet ministers, their sycophants, and their political parties. 

Speaking at the event after Kinshasa Lieutenant-Governor Clément Bafiba, Fridolin Kaweshi--the minister of Spatial Planning, Urban Planning, Habitat, Infrastructures, Public Works and Reconstruction--broke into the usual spiel: this building is yet another marker in the string of other grandiose achievements in Kabila's transformative vision of the "revolution for modernity."

But only diehard Kabila supporters who flocked the midmorning event in downtown Kinshasa were dazzled by this grandstanding.

No one else in the city was much impressed by the miniature model of the 20-month building project that will be implemented by the Chinese construction company SZTC on 23,329.35 m2 for a total cost of CDF24.5b (about $26.5m).

All the talk in town was about two things: 1) What the grapevine called the "aborted government reshuffle" and speculations were rife about who or what prevented it; and 2) The "farcical ultimatum of MONUSCO" that expired in the afternoon of Thursday August 1 and that had Goma residents explode with anger at the "collusion" between MONUSCO, Rwanda and M23 to "balkanize" the DRC.

***

PHOTO CREDITS: 1) PHOTO 1: Photo by John Bompengo/Radio Okapi via 7sur7.cd; PHOTO 2: Photo by Charly Kasereka via actudukivu.blogspot.com

Read More

What has Kabila in store for cabinet ministers on Friday, August 2?

(PHOTO: Prez Joseph Kabila deplanes in Nairobi in May, 2011)

***

The buzz in Kinshasa isn't about Prez Joseph Kabila attending the Nairobi extraordinary summit of heads of state of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) that once again called for spurious talks between the DRC and Rwandan proxies of M23.

Or about whether--during and after that Summit--Rwandan Prez Paul Kagame is still intent on giving his Tanzanian counterpart Jakaya Kikwete a vicious kick in the gitalong, as the crazy man threatened in early July at a Kigali meeting of the top brass of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) party.

Or about the outrage of the news about Jehovah's Witnesses being persecuted in M23-controlled territory for refusing to pay the daily "satanic" tribute-money the armed Rwandan stooges have imposed on households.

Or still about M23 bandits flouting MONUSCO Force Intervention Brigade (FIB) ultimatum that expires today at 16:00 HRS Goma Time (GMT + 2)!

All the buzz in Kin is instead about the extraordinary cabinet meeting Kabila has called with much fanfare and veiled threat for tomorrow, August 2, 2013.

A summons issued by the  Government's General Secretariat on July 30 enjoins all cabinet ministers present in Kinshasa to stay put for that meeting; and urges those enjoying travel perks to return pronto to the capital city for that meeting.

According to the daily Le Potentiel, this summons has caused significant wind chill factors within political parties participating in the ruling majority coalition government. 

Those parties are expecting a major government reshuffle on August 2.

The grapevine of Radio-Trottoir goes even further and speculates that on Friday major opposition parties will be integrated into a new broad-based national union government.

Anyway, tomorrow is just around the corner, as the saying goes, and we'll find out soon enough what Kabila has in store for his cabinet ministers.

***

PHOTO CREDITS: Via nation.co.ke

Read More