TWO ANTI-KABILA EXTRA-PARLIAMENTARY POLITICAL

C O N F I D E N T I A L BRUSSELS 001474 SIPDIS DEPT: FOR EUR/WE SHARP; INR BERNTSEN AND EHRENREICH; AF/CA E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/21/2018 TAGS: PGOV PREL CG BE SUBJECT: TWO ANTI-KABILA EXTRA-PARLIAMENTARY POLITICAL GROUPS SEEK USG ATTENTION AND HELP Classified By: POL/ECON Counselor Richard Eason for Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: Since mid-June, an Embassy Poloff with a previous posting in Kinshasa has been sought out separately by the heads of two different Congolese political groups (Union Socialiste Congolaise and the Movement des Patriots Congolais). These groups did not participate in the electoral process that brought the Joseph Kabila government to power because (they say) they thought the process crooked from the get-go since it lacked foreign supervision at the ballot boxes; they now feel that their skepticism was justified. Both are particularly worried about developments in Kivu, where lawlessness and neighboring countries' interference continue to add to the toll of Congolese dead, robbed and/or raped. They ask why the U.S. no longer appears to be interested in the Congo's current problems (despite five million dead in recent years) or in its future fate. They say the U.S. seems willing to watch Kabila's incompetence and Nkunda's taking power in the East by force without reacting. One of these politicians, while recognizing the attention the USG gave to get the electoral process on track, claims to detect a recent shift of focus by the U.S. in favor of the DRC's eastern neighbors: Rwanda and Uganda. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (C) Christian Badibangi, President of the Congolese Socialist Union (USC) which his card describes as an "extra-parliamentary opposition group," asked to see someone in the political section to whom he could present his case. Poloff and polintern met him and his special counselor M'fumuTiya Guy Mindombe on September 21st and heard him out. Badibangi is a member of the Luba tribe who comes from the Lac Monkamba area of Western Kasai, about halfway between Kananga and Mbuji Mayi, an area that was heavily missionized by American Presbyterians and other Protestants. He claimed that he worked for years as minister of foreign affairs under the "government" of Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) President Etienne Tshisekedi who was briefly (three months) prime minister, having been elected to that office by the Zairian parliament in the latter days of the Mobutu regime. Though Badibangi was never a member of UDPS he was "an ally on the ground" of that party and of Tshisekedi, whom he describes as being old and ill now. Badibangi describes as one of his greatest achievements the organizing of a meeting between Tshesekedi and Rwandan President Kagame in 2001-2; during that same trip he got "500 chefs coutumiers" together to agree on a peace plan. But the plan never got any traction. He has only contempt for Kabila, whom he claims has not kept any of his promises and under whose regime the country has fallen to lows unknown even in the worst days of Mobutu. He said he thought the U.S. was ignoring Congo's needs in favor of dealing with Rwanda and Uganda. He complained especially of the way that a gunslinger like Nkunda is treated seriously by foreign governments, such as the U.S. and France, whereas those who seek to make their case without arms, such as his group (which he claims has wide support among many ethnic groups and regions) is ignored. He asked rhetorically, "Do we need to get guns and shoot and rape and rob before you pay attention to us?" ¶3. (C) Poloff said that it is hard for outsiders, such as we, to gauge the strength of his support in the country when he and his party were not willing to participate in elections. She said that we see elections as the way peaceable opposition is normally conducted and there is no way for an outside country to simply walk in and choose whom to support in a vaccuum. She noted that the USG efforts had been not only to support an electoral process but also endorsed and supported the creating of a constitution and of a disarmament-and-reintegration process for former armed opponents. But it is not an outsider's job to choose Congo's leaders, though that is admittedly not easy to do in an atmosphere of physical insecurity. ¶4. (C) Badibangi said that the AMANI Forum, a peace-promoting initiative of the Great Lakes Parliamentary Group, and its leader Abbe Malu Malu have been notably unsuccessful in promoting peace in the Eastern Congo. ¶5. (C) Previous to this request from Badibangi, Viktor Ngazayo, a wealthy entrepreneur in agriculture and hotels, invited poloff (whom he had met many years ago) to lunch in mid-June in order to present the case of the party of which he is national president: the Movement des Patriots Congolais. 64-year-old Ngazayo is the son of a Russian father and Tutsi mother with a very favorable reputation among American Protestant missionaries in his home region of North Kivu where he used to plant lots of coffee before the domestic transport crisis made it untenable. His party is a member party of the "Conventions des Democrats Chretiens" which Ngazayo describes as an opposition group composed of Catholics and Protestants from all over the DRC. The Convention's president is Gilbert Kiakwama (one-time Minister of Finance for Mobutu); its VP is Prof. Florentin Mokonda, a Zande from Kisangani who once directed Mobutu's cabinet. These men are part of a group whom Ngazayo describes as having moved into the opposition in Mobutu's final days. Ngazayo also claims they have relations with Prof. Emile Ngoy from the Kasais and Prof. Lunda Bululu from Katanga and maintain some ties with the UDPS, though not personally with Tshisekedi nor with Badibangi's socialists. ¶6. (C) Like Badibangi, Ngazayo has only contempt for President Joseph Kabila and his regime. He describes Kabila as illiterate or, at best, unschooled, inexperienced, lazy and incompetent. He says that,although Kabila can be charming in person and seemingly intelligent, as president he has shown himself to be indecisive -- all talk and no action. Caught inside the bubble of his "court," he has neither the knowledge nor the capacity to govern in the East, where anarchy reigns, and has no control over the conduct of the Army (FARDC) or the police. On Kabila's watch, Ngazayo claims, the country's infrastructure has collapsed to the point that the fact of being one nation -- Mobutu's main achievement -- is losing out to facts of physical separation on the ground. Kabila, he claims, has made private arrangements with various investors -- chiefly Chinese -- for control over Katanga's mineral resources. The Chinese pay for access to these riches with second-rate and/or used arms (tanks, etc.) for the FARDC and money under the table for Kabila. The educational system has broken down so that ther are no new educated people growing up to take over the reins of power eventually. Ngazayo sees MONUC as having been useless during the past five years, NOT training the army or the police but merely writing reports and taking money while millions of Congolese die and/or are assaulted by those who should protect them. He also claims that Kabila established a reign of terror in the Bas-Kongo region under which hundreds of people were killed without cause. He also claims that, in the East, every group has its own militia, obliging Congolese Tutsi Laurent Nkunda to acquire one for his fellow Tutsis. ¶7. (C) Like Badibangi, Ngazayo wonders when the U.S. will lose patience with the Kabila regime and give support to more competent leaders. He sees signs that the Belgians have begun to lost patience with Kabila. Ngazayo's group would even be willing to accept a government headed by Kengo Wa Dondo, a former Mobutu stalwart who at least is educated and intelligent. Ngazayo says his group finds the continuing anarchy intolerable. It has already claimed the life of Ngazayo's elder brother, Albert, who had been active in protecting the nature reserves in the Kivu. Albert had received a favorable ruling from the Supreme Court to recover lake-side Kivu property he owned, The losers had threatened him with unspecified reprisals if he acted to take back that land. He was shot dead at midday some months ago within sight of an army post and police post in Goma. Viktor Ngazayo has now moved his own family over the border into Rwanda, having been warned by the local Roman Catholic bishop that there are plans to kill Viktor, too. ¶8. (C) COMMENT: In no position to estimate the amount of support either of these politicians' parties has, poloff suspects that they don't have much. The fragmentation of the opposition into small, weak groups has long worked -- and appears to continue to work -- in favor of whomever is in power in Kinshasa. But the complaints these opposition politicians make come as no surprise to students of the region and most of their charges are probably accurate. END COMMENT FOX .