Augustin Katumba Mwanke
Photo: Le Soft Numérique
The cable also alleges that Katumba may “have significant health problems. He spent several weeks in South Africa earlier this year for medical treatment. The nature of his health problems is not known. Some observers, however, believe he is HIV positive. This theory would seem bolstered by his emaciated physical appearance.”
Katumba, the cable further alleges, “is known to be close to Israeli citizen Dan Gertler, a mysterious trader in precious minerals who, according to some sources, lends Kabila his private jet for trips abroad.”
In a description of Kabila’s entourage eerily reminiscent of Jason Stearns’s hypothesis of the “Logic of Disorder in Kinshasa,” the cable concludes:
“While the removal of Augustin Katumba as head of the AMP is a significant change in the leadership hierarchy, his demotion may not signal permanent exclusion from Kabila's inner circle, nor does it follow that he will exercise less influence vis-a-vis his boss. Kabila, as Congolese leaders past, routinely rotates his followers in and out of positions and closer or farther from the center of power. This juggling may keep potential rivals from consolidating their authority by maintaining the established patron-client relationship. With Kabila's focus turning more toward his reelection campaign, more changes are sure to follow.”
2) Breaking News: Etienne Tshisekedi files to run for President
Etienne Tshisekedi
Filing to run for DRC president
CENI Headquarters, Kinshasa, Gombe Commune (downtown)
Monday, September 5, 2011
Photo: John Bompengo/Radio Okapi
Accompanied by thousands of his followers and the opposition leaders backing him as their “common presidential candidate,” Etienne Tshisekedi went this Monday to CENI headquarters to file to run for President.
Speaking to the press afterwards, Tshisekedi stated:
“A group [of the opposition] freely took a stance for my candidacy; but there was another group which, rightly, either has laid down conditions or was reluctant. As I’m a democrat, I respect the opinions of all. (…) However, I have to put an end to this process of consultation [between oppositions parties].”
Tshisekedi was alluding to the recent bipolar division of the opposition between two groups: 1) The Fatima Group, which is also called the “Dynamique Tshisekedi Président” (DTP) that backs the presidential bid of Tshisekedi; and 2) The Sultani Group, or the “Cadre de Concertation de l’Opposition” (CCO). The CCO wants elaborate consultations between opposition parties over their respective platforms and programs before choosing a presidential candidate. Kengo, a CCO participant, even floated the idea of holding opposition primaries.
Kamerhe, MP Thomas Luhaka (MLC), Léon Kengo wa Dondo, and Dr. Oscar Kashala belong to the Sultani Group.
These groups are named after the venues where their crucial meetings took place: the conference halls of Notre Dame de Fatima Parish and of Sultani Hotel—both located in the Gombe Commune (downtown Kinshasa).
More about the rift between these two groups below.
3) Bipolar opposition: Fatima Group vs. Sultani Group
MP Jean-Claude Vuemba Luzamba
Chairman, Mouvement du Peuple Congolais pour la République (MPCR)
Leading member of the Pro-Tshisekedi Fatima Group
Squaring the circle, as the Kinshasa daily La Prosperité recently quipped about the unending squabble over a common opposition candidate, is the only apt metaphor to describe the rift tearing opposition leaders and their political parties.
This rift has crystallized around two groups now being referred to by the opposition and the media as “Fatima Group” and “Sultani Group.”
Etienne Tshisekedi, backed by the Fatima Group (around 80 smaller parties plus the UDPS), has just filed to run for president. It’s announced that Vital Kamerhe and Léon Kengo wa Dondo will also file to run for president this week.
Not content to stop at their division, these two groups have now resorted to lobbing verbal assaults at each other in newsprints and on prime-time TV.
The latest in those donnybrooks is the interview La Prospérité published this Monday ( August 5) of MP Jean-Claude Vuemba Luzamba, leader of the Mouvement du Peuple Congolais pour la République (MPCR).
The interview reveals the following:
a) MP Vuemba, who hails from the Bas-Congo Province, has turned into the political enemy of MP Ne Mwanda Nsemi, also a native of Bas-Congo and leader of the banned Bundu dia Mayala, for the latter’s support for Kamerhe in their province;
b) On the reluctance of Kamerhe and Kengo to endorse Tshisekedi as president, MP Vuemba, in so many words, accused them of being pro-Kabila opportunists masquerading as opposition leaders (a conspiracy theory rampant in the rank and file of the opposition): “We have now come to realize that some friends wanted to bamboozle the big family of the Opposition into declaring them opposition presidential candidates.”
Commenting namely on Kamerhe and Kengo, MP Vuemba said:
“Kamerhe has just arrived on the scene, not even six months ago. You’re not going to request that Tshisekedi receive [the preconditions voiced by] him. What’s President Kamerhe’s [political] worth at the present moment? (…) Kengo wa Dongo was an independent until about fifteen days ago when he launched his political party.”
Someone recently asked me to place a bet on the upcoming presidential election in the DRC—granted that these elections are held on November 28 as planned, as serious snags have now arisen (see here and here, courtesy of Mel in her comment on my post of September 3). I said Kabila will win hands down. And these quarrels seem to confirm my bet.
4) Zero Tolerance: Postal Service CEO Jean-Pierre Muhondo wa Shabalala thrown in Makala Prison for stealing more than $3m
Jean-Pierre Muhondo wa Shabalala
Disgraced thieving CEO of SCPT
The opposition and “Radio-Trottoir” (grapevine) often mock Kabila’s anti-graft campaign called “Zero Tolerance” as more often than not only small fish are caught in its net. This time around, it seems that a sizeable fish has been caught.
Jean-Pierre Muhondo wa Shabalala, CEO of the woebegone Société Commerciale de Poste et de Télécommunication (SCPT), has just been nabbed and thrown into Kinshasa Makala Prison for stealing more than $3m of the paltry $8m the government borrowed from local banks to transition from the expensive Internet access by satellite to fiber optic speed.
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