Kin was flabbergasted by the recent signing of an agreement at the
headquarters of AMP on Avenue des Huileries in Lingwala Commune
between CNDP, the former rebel movement once led by renegade general
Laurent Nkunda, and the Raïs' Alliance of Presidential Majority. An
unanticipated earth-shattering move by CNDP which thus joins the Raïs'
cartel of 50-odd political parties--with the Tutsi movement proudly
hoisting its flag amidst the other flags flying in front of the AMP
headquarters.
Radio-Trottoir pundits make a real hoo-ha about this "unholy alliance"
with a movement once backed by Rwanda and which had wreaked havoc to
vast swaths of North-Kivu Province. They anticipate a resentment by
the peoples of eastern Congo, where the memory of massacres and rapes
perpetrated by CNDP troops is still vivid, and speculate that this
alliance could cost votes to the AMP in the upcoming 2011 general
elections. Some wicked tongues read this development with the skewed
template of Honoré Ngbanda, the Paris-basis Congolese diaspora radical
opposition leader: the Raïs is a Rwandan and a Kagame plant who has at
last unmasked himself!
Critics also point out that the chief of CNDP military wing Gen
Jean-Bosco Ntaganda ( a "fugitive" who has an ICC arrest warrant
hanging over his head) and his men are adamantly refusing to be
individually moved by DRC defense authorities from the territory where
they are entrenched with their command structure intact.
Asked specifically about the oddity of a party qua
army-within-the-army in a recent radio interview, André Alain Atundu,
an AMP stalwart and a one-time Mobutu's chief spy, said--in the
gobbledygook of Mobutuists that has since become the speak of the
presidential majority's politicos' talking points--that there lies
precisely the very "paradox of action dynamics" characterized by a
"time-lag between a resolution or an idea and its implementation." All
Atundu meant to say was that in the end CNDP would see the light and
come around. Pressed on the issue of making peace and an alliance with
CNDP "without justice" for its many victims in the Kivus, Atundu came
up with a novel postulate of social contract à la Jean-Jacques
Rousseau. "The most important thing in a society isn't justice,"
Atundu said. "It's solidarity. Solidarity trumps justice!"
It's solidarity, stupid! A new slogan for brushing aside impunity. Brilliant!...
Opposition politicians angrily accuse AMP of turning into a hoarding
beast of political parties--bereft of political ideas but fueled by
the single-minded goal encapsulated in the slogan: "re-election of the
Raïs in the first round." The new tunnel-vision banner of the
country...
2. Vital Kamerhe's Season in Hell
This past Thursday, in a live televised event, Vital Kamerhe came out
swinging a vicious Louisville at the head of the Raïs.
During a two-hour-long event at the unveiling of his party--the Union
pour la Nation Congolaise (UNC)-- he reiterated what he said the
previous week in an interview with "Congo Média Channel" (CMC) TV
station: his break with the Raïs' PPRD party he co-founded for losing
sight of its fundamental objectives.
In a speech laced with Biblical references, Kamerhe then launched an
all-out with no holds barred attack on the Raïs's rule: lack of
vision, rampant corruption, the population's squalid impoverishment in
a country rich in resources, a "parallel government" that actually
runs the DRC (a concept reminiscent of Jason Stearns' hypothesis of
"concentric circles of power" around Kabila), etc. And, he vowed, if
designated by his own party and if asked by the "people of God" (the
Congolese), to run for president next year.
The unveiling of Kamerhe's party was a star-studded affair with, in
the packed audience, heavyweight opposition figures and outspoken
critics of the Raïs, among whom were: Azarias Ruberwa of RCD and his
sidekick RCD Senator Maître Moïse Nyarugabo; the leader of the Bakongo
separatist cargo cult of Bundu-dia-Kongo and independent MP Ne Nsemi;
the President of MLC parliamentary group François Mwamba; MLC MP
Thomas Luhaka, a strident scourge of the Raïs; top-level
representatives of UDPS-Limete wing (Tshisekedi) and UDPS-Rigini
(dissidents from Tshisekedi wing); and pro- and anti-AMP
journalists--as well as Kamerhe inseparable "accomplice in political
crime" of lese-majesty, the savvy Kudura Kasongo, owner of CMC TV
station and estranged spokesman of the Raïs. For Kamerhe's ambition is
also to see the opposition united--not with the purpose of him
becoming its leader but in order to mount a coordinated assault on the
Raïs come the elections of next year.
In keeping with this objective, Kamerhe revealed that he'd visited
Jean-Pierre Bemba (as well as Thomas Lubanga) who is an ICC prison
inmate at The Hague. According to Kamerhe, he told Bemba to keep his
chin up as he'd end up being released and will definitely "return home
to strengthen democracy!"
Kamerhe vowed to embark the very next day (last Friday) on a political
blitzkrieg in his stronghold of eastern DRC to make his pitch in stomp
speeches in Kisangani, Goma, Bukavu, and Kindu.
As it turned out last weekend, Kamerhe was making that vow without
reckoning with the "act of God" constituted by the zealotry of AMP
stalwarts who happen to be at the helm of the 4 eastern provinces and
their supporters.
MP Thomas Luhaka once quipped in an interview with belgian Francophone
TV channel RTBF that democracy stops at the exit gate of the Palais du
Peuple--the Parliament building in the Lingwala Commune. And Kamerhe
experienced first-hand this conventional wisdom imparted by MP
Luhaka...
In Kisangani, Kamerhe was roughed up by AMP supporters and his
banner-totting supporters were prevented by cops from welcoming him at
Bangboka International Airport; in Goma, authorities deployed troops
and riot cops to scatter his supporters who were then attacked by AMP
militants, and his rally was banned; in his hometown of Bukavu,
Kamerhe was denied permission to hold a rally at the Place de
l'Indépendance; and he didn't even bother to stop in Kindu where the
governor of the Maniema Province, who had riot cops deployed in the
wee hours of morning, blasted him in the syncretic speak similar to
Kamerhe's own Bible-speak: "Power and authority stem from God! It's
written in The Holy Bible and in The Holy Koran. There's no way I'll
let this Monsieur come on my turf and defile the Raïs!"
This outburst so much outraged RCD Senator Moïse Nyarugabo that he
made the round of radio and TV political programs to denounce the
terrible "Ouattara-ization" of Kamerhe and the dangerous
"Gbagbo-ization" of the Raïs--using the Ivorian debacle as a
cautionary tale.
AMP politicos, on the other hand, downplayed the strong-armed tactics
used to derail Kamerhe's eastern blitz on "local politics by local
politicians" and their overzealous support of the Raïs.
In any event, Vital Kamerhe cut short his tour and flew back to
Kinshasa on Sunday--a wounded dog with his tail between his hind legs!
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