connexion was cut off during the riots.)
Tshisekedi was planning his mock swearing-in ceremony on Friday,
December 23, at 11:00 Hours Kinshasa Time (GMT + 1) at Martyrs Stadium
in Kinshasa (in my previous post I mistakenly identified the venue as
Tata Raphaël Stadium). But that didn't happen. For one, the Republican
Guard has been surrounding the stadium with tanks for several days
now. Secondly, a heavy police deployment was able to disperse the
throng of Baluba youth gangs that had had responded to UDPS call to
show up at the Martyrs Stadium.
The disturbance was limited to neighborhoods in the vicinity of the
Stadium--that is Matonge, close to Tata Raphaël Stadium, and parts of
Lingwala neighborhood, nearby Martyrs Stadium.
The Baluba youth were chanting in Lingala: "We will die for
Tshisekedi! The people first! We'll drive Kabila back to Rwanda where
he belongs!"
But that tribal resolve was quickly blown away by the conflagrations
of flash grenades lobbed by riot cops. The retreating Baluba gangs
then looted a few beer depots in the Kauka quarter in Kalamu Commune.
I was in Matonge in Kalamu Commune near Tata Raphaëel Stadium (in fact
I'm writing this from that neighborhood) during the disturbance and I
only saw Baluba youth being arrested, then released by the police. I
didn't see one single member of UDPS leadership among those arrested.
Which goes a long way to show the cowardice of the UDPS leadership.
Primary schools that had opened for the day were stuck with kids that
had to wait for their parents to pick them up amid gunfire and flash
grenade reports in quarters close to the Martyrs Stadium.
It might be dawning on Kinois that UDPS is at its core a tribal party.
And those Kinois I spoke to--especially students' parents--are mad at
the mayhem inleashed by Baluba youth today. Fortunately, by 14:00
Hours, restive neighborhoods had been pacified by the police.
I'm sipping a crisp cold Skol beer right now at a sidewalk bar in
Matonge. Baluba drinking at the next table claim Tshisekedi has just
been sworn in at his Limete residence. The question I can't ask them
is the following: if he knew all along he'd be sworn in Baluba
President of Limete, why all this senseless charade in other Kinshasa
neighborhoods?
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