Looking for Flashpoints

It seems that Congolese authorities are looking for the lowest
temperatures at which to ignite the vapors of political and social
discontent hovering above the country. And this week they just found
two of these flashpoints: UNIKIN (the University of Kinshasa) and the
Bandundu Province.
At UNIKIN, academic authorities decided to raise exam registration
fees, no doubt forgetting that the unemployment rate of students'
parents stands at about 95 percent. As one could expect, students went
on a rampage, burned a section of the main administration building,
before the riot police intervened and seriously injured 3 them.
A few weeks ago, the Provincial Assembly of Bandundu impeached
Governor Richard Ndambu for corruption, mismanagement and
embezzlement. The man appealed to the Supreme Court, which reinstated
him on Tuesday on a technicality, without addressing any of the
charges that led to the impeachment...
Well, again, as could be anticipated, denizens of the Province run
amok, and ransacked the governor's businesses as well as those of his
relatives. Three people lay dead after the intervention of the riot
police...

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Easfer Sunday of Etienne Tshisekedi aka Tshitshi aka Lider Maximo

Twenty-one years ago yesterday, a tearful Mobutu stood in front of TV
cameras at N'Sele, a suburb of Kinshasa, to announce to the nation his
resignation as chairman of the Party-State and the beginning of the
multiparty system.
Etienne Tshisekedi, then and now at the helm of UDPS--the historic
opposition party--was quick to appropriate that date as marker for his
party.
This time around, April 24 fell on Easter Sunday and 'combatants', as
UDPS party members are called, thronged at the no less historic Tata
Raphael Stadium, the setting of the Rumble in the Jungle, to listen to
Tshisekedi deliver a short speech that stands as the opening salvo in
his presidential bid.
In theory, presidential and legislative elections should take place in
November. But, practically, as the CENI, the independent electoral
commission, accumulates delays upon delays, the November deadline
seems to many as belonging to the realm of wishful thinking. Be that
as it may, Tshisekedi warned that if a new president isn't sworn in by
December 6, the constitutional deadline, his party would take to the
streets to kick the Rais out...

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From his jail cell at The Hague Jean-Pierre Bemba fires François Muamba, acting Prez of his party

Just as Cosa Nostra dons continue to run their businesses from prison, Jean-Pierre Bemba, an ICC prison inmate at The Hague, fired early this week MP François Muamba as head of the MLC bloc at the National Assembly and as acting president of the party.

Thomas Luhaka, Muamba's erstwhile deputy, is now in command of the party, after hastily convening MLC founding leaders to apprise them of Bemba's decision.

Hpwever, Muamba refused to abide by that decision and insists that a prisoner can't make a legally-binding decision. Hence, Muamba claims, he's still the acting president of MLC. Some MLC MPs and stalwarts have already sided with him, thus indicating a split of the party a few months shy of the presidential and legislative elections.

Muamba is accused of carrying out a "political euthanasia" of Bemba by suggesting that the MLC could come up with another presidential candidate if Bemba were to be convicted by the ICC.

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Abidjan Endgame: Attrition at Fort-Gbagbo

There are two prisms through which one could look at the endgame unfolding in Abidjan, where, uncannily, Laurent Gbagbo and Alassane Dramane Ouattara have, in a perfect symmetry, swapped positions.

The first prism is provided by flicks straight from the Western Channel and suggested by the French daily "Libération" which called Gbagbo's residence in the Abidjan Cocody quarter "Fort Gbagbo."

Unable to dislodge the incumbent bunkered at Fort-Gbagbo, the recreant forces of Ouattara have simply resorted to a "blockade" in the hope that, worn out by attrition, Gbagbo would one day cry uncle! A remake of one of those Western movies directed maybe by John Ford and set against the Cinemascope background of pre-revolutionary Mexico--without bad and good guys, with only bandits-qua-warlords...

The other prism is provided by the adventures of Tintin, specifically "Tintin and the Picaros," in which Gen Alcazar and Gen Tapioca--through coups, counter-coups, insurgencies, and counter-insurgencies--attempt to control a Latin American banana republic...

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A tale of woe from the boonies: ranting on my stolen Blackberry

Two weeks ago I was boasting to my buddy Al, who was complaining to me about his stolen mobile phone, that such misfortune would never befall me. Behaving like a pedant, I told him that, as I always wear jeans and as I always tuck my phone in the hip pocket of my jeans, I'd never be a sucker to Kinois thieves... Little did I know that just a few days later, this mischief would be played upon me at the family house where I live in this city teeming with sociopaths and kleptomaniacs whose callousness knows no bounds.

The irony was compounded by the fact that on the night my Blackberry vanished as if by sleight of hand, we'd just received word that a 17-year-old relative had died of internal bleeding after receiving a beating administered by two of her maternal uncles for stealing their iPod and a sum of 3,000 Congolese Francs.

Tradition requires that at a wake people sleep on the floor. Woe betide me for following such a stupid custom... I plugged my Blackberry into an outlet that was less than 1 meter from where I slept. In the morning, the thing was gone...

The most amazing thing about the event was that when I confronted the known family kleptomaniac who is the prime suspect of the theft, he turned around and acccused me of sorcery for tarnishing his reputation...

Curse upon this kleptomaniac and the person who bought my Blackberry from him...

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