Washington, D.C. — The messy Congo-Kinshasa political situation became messier Monday as John Tibasima Atenyi, a Vice President of the Bunia-based rebel movement Congolese Rally for Democracy, Kissangani (RCD-K), said it has removed the group's leader, Professor Wamba dia Wamba.
"Wamba is now out of the movement," declared Tibasima, who also said that in Lusaka this past Friday he had prevented Wamba from signing a declaration calling for all-party dialogue and signed it himself on behalf of the RCD. Nor, said Tibasima, was Wamba in Bunia where the RCD-K is based.
Replying from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Professor Wamba said he had not gone to Bunia because Uganda kept him out. Tibasima, says Wamba "signed as a vice-president of the movement."
The split between Wamba and Tibasima as well as with Mbusa Nyamwisi, another RCD vice president, has been clear since January, when three rebel leaders agreed to merge with Jean Pierre Bemba's Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC) and form a new group, the Congolese Liberation Front (CLF). Wamba refused to join, but several members of his executive, including Mbusa and Tibasima, agreed to sign on to the new group.
Wamba still heads RCD-K, says international economist Marc Mealy, who in Washington, D.C. advises Wamba on U.S. policy. "A large number of the RCD-K cabinet body, including the governor of north Kivu, still recognize Wamba as the President." The two men were officially suspended Mealy says, but "because Tibasima, Mbusa and Lumbala are allied with certain figures in Uganda, and Bemba, Wamba's suspension of them as the elected President of the RCD-K was not able to be implemented on the ground."
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In preparing for an "Inter-Congolese Dialogue" meeting planned for last week, peace negotiator Ketumile Masire, the former President of Botswana, sent an "open invitation" to the RCD with the result that both Tibasima and his faction and Wamba and his loyalists, came to Lusaka to participate. Tibasima reportedly said that he would not sign any agreement that Wamba signed. This stance, plus the absence of Congo President Joseph Kabila, derailed the session.
According to Mealy, "Masire was under 'pressure' to exclude Wamba from the dialogue." But Mealy could not say who was applying the 'pressure', or why. "I almost get the sense that the Inter-Congolese dialogue will be very superficial, short, and limited in scope. I also have the feeling that the parameters of the dialogue are being pre-determined by outside influences. This spells trouble, if you ask me."
Few observors thinks Monday's events write the final chapter on rebel political arrangements in the Congo.
