1) Ghost Prez's call for countrywide strike ignoredLast Friday, January 27, after being prevented by the police fromdriving to the "Palais de la Nation"—the presidential office—to assumethe presidency, DRC self-proclaimed ghost Prez Etienne Tshisekediangrily exclaimed: "Monday 30, there should be a general strikecountrywide till further notice."Adding:"I was attempting to get out of my house to head to the Palais de laNation where I should have taken over as president of the DemocraticRepublic of the Congo. No sooner had I had left my house than...
Tuesday, 31 January 2012
Friday, 27 January 2012
1) Prez returns to Kin; 2) Riot at Limete; and 3) CENI resumes publication of legislative election results
Posted on 07:57 by Unknown
1) Prez returns to KinJoseph Kabila finally returned to the Congolese capital in the afternoon of Wednesday, January 25, after a month-long absence. As usual, he was seen at the wheel of his SUV in the middle of the presidential motorcade. Kabila's absence fueled wild rumors on Kinshasa Radio-Trottoir--especially as he and his wife failed to appear at Mzee Laurent Kabila's mausoleum on January 16, the 11th anniversary of the latter's assassination. And three days prior to the president's return, two Kinshasa dailies had beseeched the president...
Ruling virtual country by press conferences
Posted on 07:55 by Unknown
Etienne Tshisekedi thinks he's found a way of ruling his virtual country. By press conferences held at his Limete residence, around which the police has set up an equally virtual embattlement to keep the self-proclaimed prez in and his supporters out. This was the stunt Tshisekedi pulled this past Friday evening when he convened a press conference--poorly attended for obvious reasons: the police tear-gassed those (journos and fans alike) who attempted to attend the event. The stunt was undoubtedly justified by the mounting pressure from die-hard...
Sunday, 22 January 2012
Ruling virtual country by press conferences
Posted on 00:58 by Unknown
Etienne Tshisekedi thinks he's found a way of ruling his virtual country. By press conferences held at his Limete residence, around which the police has set up an equally virtual embattlement to keep the self-proclaimed prez in and his supporters out. This was the stunt Tshisekedi pulled this past Friday evening when he convened a press conference--poorly attended for obvious reasons: the police tear-gassed those (journos and fans alike) who attempted to attend the event. The stunt was undoubtedly justified by the mounting pressure from die-hard...
Tuesday, 17 January 2012
"The Curse of Lumumba" (Pius Ngandu Nkashama)
Posted on 05:27 by Unknown
Fifty-one years ago this day, Patrice Emery Lumumba, 36, was cowardly assassinated at Elisabethville (Lubumbashi).I won't be rehashing the gruesome story here, which now belongs to the annals of history and filmography (both documentary and feature-length fiction)--except to point out that no one, among those who participated in the murder conspiracy, has ever been brought to justice. In fact, in Lubumbashi, the main plaza of the city is named after the man who ordered Lumumba's and two of his ministers' unlawful execution by firing squad (manned...
Monday, 16 January 2012
Tunnel Vision: Koffi Olomide's new album "Abracadabra" draws fire from pro-Tshisekedi goons
Posted on 04:07 by Unknown
If soukouss star Koffi Olomide thought his new album aptly titled "Abracadabra" would be "an incantation used to ward off calamity" (Webster's), he has since no doubt put paid to that goosey notion. Pro-Tshisekedi goons are irked--nay, maddened--by Olomide for joining the presidential PPRD party and for his campaign hit song on behalf of Joseph Kabila. On January 7, the date of the release of "Abracadabra" in Paris, pro-Tshisekedi supporters threatened to burn down the entire city block housing African music shops if these dared to put on their...
Sunday, 15 January 2012
Radio-Trottoir feed: The "Third Way" conspiracy or why Kengo was assaulted in Paris
Posted on 01:59 by Unknown
The grapevine of Radio-Trottoir has been feeding like crazy strands of rumors boiling down to variations on the same theme: a conspiracy called "La Troisième Voie" (the Third Way). A conspiracy allegedly hatched by Senate President Léon Kengo wa Dondo and Laurent Cardinal Monsengwo! A conspiracy that unfolds like a back-to-the-future plot line... During the transitional period of the early 1990s that followed hard on the heels of the National Sovereign Conference (CNS) headed by Mgr. Laurent Monsengwo (then archbishop of Kisangani), Etienne Tshisekedi...
Friday, 13 January 2012
DRC Catholic Episcopal Conference tones down sedition theology of Kinshasa Archdiocese
Posted on 06:04 by Unknown
The Catholic Episcopal Conference of Congo (CENCO) met in an extraordinary plenary session from January 9 to 11 to discuss the November 28 general elections. Politicians, especially those close to Kabila, were awaiting with terror the release of CENCO's statement on Thursday, thinking that it would be in a piece with the recent sedition theology developed by the Kinshasa Archdiocese. CENCO's statement, albeit couched in tough wording, stopped short of calling for open sedition--as did the homily of last Saturday mass delivered by Mgr. Albert...
Monday, 9 January 2012
1) Mutiny defused but blackout in Bukavu; and 2) Kabila's twin sister elected MP in Katanga
Posted on 15:37 by Unknown
1) Mutiny defused but blackout in BukavuThe mutiny that broke out on Monday January 9 around midday in Bukavulasted for about one and a half hour. It was defused afternegotiations with the mutineers. The mutiny was caused by themutineers' perception of Kinshasa's double standard, according toinformation pieced together by Bukavu residents. Apparently, "Kabila'ssoldiers billeted in Bukavu are better and regularlarly paid, whereasBukavu's units eke out a living with miserly salaries sporadicallypaid," my relative told me over the phone.Though the...
Army mutiny in Bukavu, South Kivu Province
Posted on 03:05 by Unknown
A relative just called to inform me that intense shootings have justerupted in Bukavu, the provincial capital of South Kivu Province. Thegarrison has allegedly mutinied over soldiers' embezzled pay! At thiswriting, Bukavu residents are cowering, holed up in their hom...
Friday, 6 January 2012
The People's Republic of Kinshasa: "A bullet train headed straight against the wall" (Mgr Nicolas Djombo)
Posted on 02:20 by Unknown
The third round of CENI announcement of partial results of the presidential election occurred late in the night of Sunday, December 4. With 52.91% of votes tabulated from the 168 CENI regional "compilation centers," the trend from the two previous partial results remains steady, unchanged, and statistically sound: Kabila maintains his lead with 4,841,555. It now seems statistically impossible for Tshisekedi to reverse that trend: he's at 3,402,642. As could be anticipated, Tshisekedi and his sycophants have rejected these results and second-guessed...
Larry Devlin, Congo CIA Chief of Station: in his own words
Posted on 02:20 by Unknown
Someone in the household pointed me to my Kinshasa library where I fou Larry Devlin, "Chief of Station, Congo" (Public Affairs, New York, 2007, p.95):I'll never forget my reaction of total, fall-to-the-floor shock. "Jesus H. Christ!" I exploded "Isn't this unusual?"(...)"Who authorized this operation?" I asked."President Eisenhower," Joe said. " I wasn't there when he approved it, but Dick Bissel said that Eisenhower wanted Lumumba removed." (...)He handed over several poisons. One was concealed in a tube of toothpaste. If Lumumba used it,...
Tuesday, 3 January 2012
1) Kengo wa Dondo mugged in Paris by doppelganger anticitizens; and 2) Tshisekedi discovers the "Arcana Imperii"
Posted on 04:31 by Unknown
1) Kengo wa Dondo mugged in Paris by doppelganger anticitizensPro-Tshisekedi doppelganger anticitizens mugged former presidentialcandidate and Senate President Léon Kengo wa Dondo at Paris Gare duNord in the evening of Saturday, December 31, 2011. Kengo, who was onprivate visit, had just arrived by train from Belgium.As Kengo was entering the hired limo awaiting him, he was spotted bypro-Tshisekedi Congolese Paris residents who spontaneously jumped him.The limo driver then took off, careening into the traffic whereunfortunately the vehicle was...
Sunday, 1 January 2012
Stampede at Kinshasa Western Union outlets
Posted on 09:18 by Unknown
This past week saw a stampede at Kinshasa Western Unionoutlets--culminating on New Year's Eve when they were thronged byKinois who got remittances from family members living overseas.Yesterday, a member of my household who got $100 from Lexington,Kentucky, and $150 from Bukavu (!) spent 4 long hours in queuebefore being served--and this after trying 2 other overcrowded WesternUnion outlets.A couple of years back, a DRC Central Bank official put an annualestimate of the size of these remittances at more than $2b! In otherwords, if Congolese exiles...
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