04-24-2018, 10:46 PM
*** 25-Apr-18 World View -- Congo's Kabila and Burundi's Nkurunziza use violence and corruption to stay in power
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
****
**** DR Congo's Joseph Kabila attacks Catholic Church opposition violently
****
![[Image: g180424b.jpg]](http://Media.GenerationalDynamics.com/ww2010/g180424b.jpg)
Sunday mass in the St. Christine Catholic Church in DRC's capital city Kinshasa. (Riva Press / Redux)
The next presidential election for the Democratic Republic of Congo
(DRC) is scheduled for December 23. International leaders are
demanding that he step down and let the elections be free and fair,
demands that there is little possibility he'll meet.
Joseph Kabila was supposed to step down as president when his mandate
ran out on December 19, 2016. Instead, he pulled a breathtaking stunt
late in 2016 by doing nothing to prepare the country for new
elections, and then claimed that he couldn't step down because there
were no elections to select a president to replace him.
This stunt triggered large riots and a threat of civil war in DRC, but
the Catholic Church intervened and brokered an agreement: Elections
would be held in December of 2017 to choose Kabila's successor, and
this time Kabila would really step down. However, the agreement was a
farce: It was signed by members of Kabila's government, but it wasn't
even signed by Kabila himself. It was pretty clear throughout
2017 that Kabila would not honor the agreement.
So now we supposedly have a commitment for an election in
December of this year.
Leaders of African countries almost uniformly refuse to criticize
Kabila, mainly because many of them are just as corrupt as Kabila is.
However, Botswana's president Mokgweetsi Masisi has become the first
(and perhaps the only) African leader to take a stand and criticize
Kabila. Earlier this year, Botswana's government issued a statement
openly blaming Kabila for DRC's deteriorating humanitarian and
security situation.
And last week, Masisi said in an interview,
<QUOTE>"The president of the DRC has stayed in power longer
than the time that was expected. Hopefully we can get from
(Kabila) a real commitment to not attempt to come back to power by
whatever means."<END QUOTE>
However, as we've been reporting for months, there is no
possibility whatsoever that Kabila will step down.
Kabila and his family own, either partially or wholly, more than 80
companies and businesses in the country and abroad. He and his
children own more than 71,000 hectares (175,444 acres) of farmland.
His family owns diamond mines, a part of the country's largest mobile
phone network, companies that mine mineral deposits, gold and
limestone, a luxury hotel, stakes in an airline, a share of the
country's banks, and a fast-food franchise. This is pure criminal
corruption by Kabila and his family.
With tentacles reaching into so many businesses, it's not surprising
that Kabila is willing to use any method -- massacres, atrocities,
jailings, torture -- to stay in power. If he were to step down, he
would probably be arrested or else shot and killed, rather than
writing a book and going on tour as Western leaders do when they step
down.
As in 2016, the Catholic Church is taking on Kabila. Earlier this
year, the church organized protest events in DRC's capital city
Kinshasa. They were violently broken up by Kabila's police using live
rounds and tear gas, and at least 15 people were killed.
Kabila's attacks on the Catholic Church are only a small part of the
violence that he's causing. In the past, I've written about the
bloody wars in the southwestern Kasai region, where the armies and
militias reporting to the government of president Joseph Kabila are
committing genocide; about the bloody tribal wars in northeastern Kivu
region, causing massive refugee flows into Uganda; as we reported in February,
another a
humanitarian disaster of "extraordinary proportions" emerged in
Tanganyika province in southeastern DRC. The genocide by Kabila's
army has resulted in 3.9 million people forced to flee their homes to
escape the violence. Hundreds of thousands have fled to Zambia,
Angola and other neighboring countries as refugees, creating a
humanitarian disaster in those countries. Reuters and Irin (1-Feb) and Ozy (29-Mar) and Reuters (23-Jan)
Related Articles
****
**** Burundi's Nkurunziza uses violence on opposition to his May 17 referendum
****
DRC's Joseph Kabila is rumored to be preparing a referendum to amend
the constitution to allow him to remain in power into the 2030's.
Leaders of Rwanda and Uganda have already arranged for their
countries' constitutions to be amended in a similar way.
Burundi's president Pierre Nkurunziza, who calls himself the "eternal
supreme guide" of Burundi, has set May 17 as a date for a national
referendum to change the constitution to permit him to stay in office
until at least 2034.
According to Human Rights Watch, Nkurunziza is using violence
to guarantee that the referendum will pass. This violence
includes beatings, arrests, jailings and torture.
Nkurunziza should have stepped down as leader in 2015, since the
constitution limits any leader to two terms. When Nkurunziza
announced that he would run for a third term, his police force used
bullets, tear gas and water cannons to control the protests. He's
expected to continue to use as much force as necessary to rig
the May 17 elections and guarantee that the referendum will
pass.
I remember a time, 15-20 years ago, when I knew almost nothing about
any African country. Well, I knew a little about Egypt, South Africa,
Morocco, and a few other countries, but not much. That's why, in the
last ten years, I've made a point to learn as much as I can about
African countries. And in almost all of them, the story is the same
-- massive corruption, massive government violence, ethnic and tribal
violence. African leaders have been promising democracies, but
instead we see one leader after another using violence to stay
in power in order to protect his cronies who have been stealing
money from the treasury, often money that the West provided in
aid. That's why after forty years and billions of dollars in
Western aid, ordinary African people are just as poor as they were
forty years ago.
As in the case of DRC, we can expect more violence in the form of
killings, torture, rape, arrests, jailings, beatings, and anything
else necessary for the corrupt politicians Kabila and Nkurunziza to
keep themselves in power.
From the point of view of General Dynamics, many leaders follow
exactly the same patterns following a generational crisis civil war
between different tribes or ethnic groups. After the war ends, the
leader of the country, usually from the winning tribe or ethnic group,
refuses to give up power, and becomes increasingly violent and
authoritarian, using as an excuse that peaceful protests or negative
news articles can turn into a new civil war. This excuse provides
justification for mass slaughter, rape, torture, mass jailings,
mutilations, and so forth. I've described this behavior in Bashar
al-Assad in Syria, who has gone to the extent of using Sarin gas and
barrel bombs packed with explosives and metal and laced with chlorine
gas onto civilian neighborhoods and markets in order to kill as many
women and children as possible. Other leaders that I've described
exhibiting this type of behavior include Hun Sen in Cambodia, Paul
Biya in Cameroon, Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, Pierre Nkurunziza in
Burundi, Paul Kagame in Rwanda, Yoweri Museveni in Uganda, Robert
Mugabe in Zimbabwe, and Joseph Kabila in DRC. East Africa Monitor and Human Rights Watch and AFP
Related Articles
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, Joseph Kabila,
Botswana, Mokgweetsi Masisi, Uganda, Rwanda, Zambia, Angola,
Burundi, Pierre Nkurunziza
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
- DR Congo's Joseph Kabila attacks Catholic Church opposition violently
- Burundi's Nkurunziza uses violence on opposition to his May 17 referendum
****
**** DR Congo's Joseph Kabila attacks Catholic Church opposition violently
****
Sunday mass in the St. Christine Catholic Church in DRC's capital city Kinshasa. (Riva Press / Redux)
The next presidential election for the Democratic Republic of Congo
(DRC) is scheduled for December 23. International leaders are
demanding that he step down and let the elections be free and fair,
demands that there is little possibility he'll meet.
Joseph Kabila was supposed to step down as president when his mandate
ran out on December 19, 2016. Instead, he pulled a breathtaking stunt
late in 2016 by doing nothing to prepare the country for new
elections, and then claimed that he couldn't step down because there
were no elections to select a president to replace him.
This stunt triggered large riots and a threat of civil war in DRC, but
the Catholic Church intervened and brokered an agreement: Elections
would be held in December of 2017 to choose Kabila's successor, and
this time Kabila would really step down. However, the agreement was a
farce: It was signed by members of Kabila's government, but it wasn't
even signed by Kabila himself. It was pretty clear throughout
2017 that Kabila would not honor the agreement.
So now we supposedly have a commitment for an election in
December of this year.
Leaders of African countries almost uniformly refuse to criticize
Kabila, mainly because many of them are just as corrupt as Kabila is.
However, Botswana's president Mokgweetsi Masisi has become the first
(and perhaps the only) African leader to take a stand and criticize
Kabila. Earlier this year, Botswana's government issued a statement
openly blaming Kabila for DRC's deteriorating humanitarian and
security situation.
And last week, Masisi said in an interview,
<QUOTE>"The president of the DRC has stayed in power longer
than the time that was expected. Hopefully we can get from
(Kabila) a real commitment to not attempt to come back to power by
whatever means."<END QUOTE>
However, as we've been reporting for months, there is no
possibility whatsoever that Kabila will step down.
Kabila and his family own, either partially or wholly, more than 80
companies and businesses in the country and abroad. He and his
children own more than 71,000 hectares (175,444 acres) of farmland.
His family owns diamond mines, a part of the country's largest mobile
phone network, companies that mine mineral deposits, gold and
limestone, a luxury hotel, stakes in an airline, a share of the
country's banks, and a fast-food franchise. This is pure criminal
corruption by Kabila and his family.
With tentacles reaching into so many businesses, it's not surprising
that Kabila is willing to use any method -- massacres, atrocities,
jailings, torture -- to stay in power. If he were to step down, he
would probably be arrested or else shot and killed, rather than
writing a book and going on tour as Western leaders do when they step
down.
As in 2016, the Catholic Church is taking on Kabila. Earlier this
year, the church organized protest events in DRC's capital city
Kinshasa. They were violently broken up by Kabila's police using live
rounds and tear gas, and at least 15 people were killed.
Kabila's attacks on the Catholic Church are only a small part of the
violence that he's causing. In the past, I've written about the
bloody wars in the southwestern Kasai region, where the armies and
militias reporting to the government of president Joseph Kabila are
committing genocide; about the bloody tribal wars in northeastern Kivu
region, causing massive refugee flows into Uganda; as we reported in February,
another a
humanitarian disaster of "extraordinary proportions" emerged in
Tanganyika province in southeastern DRC. The genocide by Kabila's
army has resulted in 3.9 million people forced to flee their homes to
escape the violence. Hundreds of thousands have fled to Zambia,
Angola and other neighboring countries as refugees, creating a
humanitarian disaster in those countries. Reuters and Irin (1-Feb) and Ozy (29-Mar) and Reuters (23-Jan)
Related Articles
- DR Congo boycotts its own international humanitarian conference for DR Congo (14-Apr-2018)
- 22-Feb-18 Tanganyika province in DR Congo faces a humanitarian disaster of 'extraordinary proportions' (22-Feb-2018)
- Democratic Republic of Congo issues farcical call for elections in December 2018 (07-Nov-2017)
- DR Congo's Joseph Kabila brings the art of power and corruption to new heights (24-Jul-2017)
- Massive government atrocities in DR Congo's Kasai threaten regional stability (21-Jun-2017)
****
**** Burundi's Nkurunziza uses violence on opposition to his May 17 referendum
****
DRC's Joseph Kabila is rumored to be preparing a referendum to amend
the constitution to allow him to remain in power into the 2030's.
Leaders of Rwanda and Uganda have already arranged for their
countries' constitutions to be amended in a similar way.
Burundi's president Pierre Nkurunziza, who calls himself the "eternal
supreme guide" of Burundi, has set May 17 as a date for a national
referendum to change the constitution to permit him to stay in office
until at least 2034.
According to Human Rights Watch, Nkurunziza is using violence
to guarantee that the referendum will pass. This violence
includes beatings, arrests, jailings and torture.
Nkurunziza should have stepped down as leader in 2015, since the
constitution limits any leader to two terms. When Nkurunziza
announced that he would run for a third term, his police force used
bullets, tear gas and water cannons to control the protests. He's
expected to continue to use as much force as necessary to rig
the May 17 elections and guarantee that the referendum will
pass.
I remember a time, 15-20 years ago, when I knew almost nothing about
any African country. Well, I knew a little about Egypt, South Africa,
Morocco, and a few other countries, but not much. That's why, in the
last ten years, I've made a point to learn as much as I can about
African countries. And in almost all of them, the story is the same
-- massive corruption, massive government violence, ethnic and tribal
violence. African leaders have been promising democracies, but
instead we see one leader after another using violence to stay
in power in order to protect his cronies who have been stealing
money from the treasury, often money that the West provided in
aid. That's why after forty years and billions of dollars in
Western aid, ordinary African people are just as poor as they were
forty years ago.
As in the case of DRC, we can expect more violence in the form of
killings, torture, rape, arrests, jailings, beatings, and anything
else necessary for the corrupt politicians Kabila and Nkurunziza to
keep themselves in power.
From the point of view of General Dynamics, many leaders follow
exactly the same patterns following a generational crisis civil war
between different tribes or ethnic groups. After the war ends, the
leader of the country, usually from the winning tribe or ethnic group,
refuses to give up power, and becomes increasingly violent and
authoritarian, using as an excuse that peaceful protests or negative
news articles can turn into a new civil war. This excuse provides
justification for mass slaughter, rape, torture, mass jailings,
mutilations, and so forth. I've described this behavior in Bashar
al-Assad in Syria, who has gone to the extent of using Sarin gas and
barrel bombs packed with explosives and metal and laced with chlorine
gas onto civilian neighborhoods and markets in order to kill as many
women and children as possible. Other leaders that I've described
exhibiting this type of behavior include Hun Sen in Cambodia, Paul
Biya in Cameroon, Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, Pierre Nkurunziza in
Burundi, Paul Kagame in Rwanda, Yoweri Museveni in Uganda, Robert
Mugabe in Zimbabwe, and Joseph Kabila in DRC. East Africa Monitor and Human Rights Watch and AFP
Related Articles
- Burundi's Hutu 'eternal supreme guide' Nkurunziza to remain in power eternally (19-Mar-2018)
- 20,000 refugees flee violence in Burundi, fearing Hutu-Tutsi war (30-Apr-2015)
- Uganda lawmakers throw fists and chairs at each other over Museveni's power grab (28-Sep-2017)
- Rwanda's president Kagame becomes another leader refusing to leave office (19-Nov-2015)
- Burundi's Pierre Nkurunziza follows Syria's Bashar al-Assad on path to genocide (13-Oct-2016)
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, Joseph Kabila,
Botswana, Mokgweetsi Masisi, Uganda, Rwanda, Zambia, Angola,
Burundi, Pierre Nkurunziza
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
