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


.