BLUNTING BEMBA'S BITE

C O N F I D E N T I A L KINSHASA 000780 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/15/2016 TAGS: PGOV MARR CG SUBJECT: BLUNTING BEMBA'S BITE REF: KINSHASA 722 Classified By: PolCouns MSanderson, reasons 1.4 b/d. ¶1. (C) PolCouns met May 14 with Air Force General John Numbi, who had just returned from heading a mission to seize arms and ammunition illegally stockpiled by VP Jean-Pierre Bemba in Bandaka. (Note: Per reftel, during the Supreme Defense Council meetings the weekend of May 6, Bemba was ordered to disperse the approximately 3,000 troops he had gathered near Kinshasa and turn over the arms and ammunitions stockpiled in Equateur. Numbi's mission was in response to the Council's decisions. End Note.) Numbi said that he had seized 56 tons of small arms (including AK47's) and ammunition, and had transported those to Kinshasa in three flights. These arms will be cataloged and redistributed to FARDC military units. In addition, Numbi had identified by serial numbers and manufacturers an additional 6 tons of arms which had "disappeared" in transit to the 110th battalion of the FARDC (based in Orientale province),and which were in a warehouse owned by Bemba in Bandaka. Numbi said he padlocked the warehouse until he receives direction on whether to send the arms on to the 110th or bring them to Kinshasa for redistribution. Numbi also said that in a closed meeting with President Kabila May 12 Vice President Azarias Ruberwa (responsible for security issues) confirmed that over 2,000 of Bemba's 3,000 men near Kinshasa already had been sent to orientation centers in Kitona and Kamina. ¶2. (C) In addition to the above, Numbi said the mission catalogued 4 tanks, 6 anti-aircraft, and about 100 medium weight, armor-piercing weapons. According to Numbi, the Ugandan government has said it will send a plane to take charge of the tanks, which it had given to Bemba during the war and which it wants to reclaim. The 6 anti-aircraft weapons (which were hidden in one of Bemba's coffee plantations) will be brought to Kinshasa sometime in the next week, and the remaining weapons will be transferred to Kinshasa by the end of the month, he said. ¶3. (C) Also this week, security forces in Kinshasa raided the residence of a recently returned "bishop," Fernando Kuthino, who had been in self-imposed exile in France since 2003, discovering a cache of weapons hidden there. (Note: Kuthino is head of a church which advocates the violent overthrow of the political system and ousting foreigners from Congo. End Note.) Initial outcry about possible harassment of a religious figure was quickly muted when the presence of the arms -- and Kuthino's apparent links to Bemba -- were made public. ¶4. (C) Comment: These actions should help blunt Bemba's ability to either disrupt the electoral process itself, or contest the results by force. It is unlikely, however, that all of his hidden resources have been neutralized. Particularly if he is indeed trying to make common cause with the UDPS, as is popularly rumored, he still has the potential to cause or magnify post-electoral social disturbances. MEECE