Opinion: The Trump Administration change their mind every month on the DRC Election!

Well, not that Donald J. Trump, the President of the United States is a stable genius, neither is his administration. That is why things like today happens. Not that its surprising, it is just their twisted imperial minds that shower the world with these gems.

Not that Trump nor his administration cares, they are just moving along and acting like nothing happen. They are just dealing with one scandal to the next. While hiding from the Special Counsel Robert Mueller, but that is what the President does. That is why the Foreign Affairs and the Secretary of State can sleep in his office. Because that is must be happening in Washington D.C. like the Starbucks around the corner only have decaf left.

Well, lets be serious, the Democratic Republic of Congo had a fraudulent elections recently, they had the polls in December 2018, Announced in January 2019. later the same month verified by the Constitutional Court. Even if the counting was rigged in favour of someone whose the predecessor made a shady back-room deal with. However, all of that was not a concern for the USA as the transition was happening in the end of January.

However, now that we’re in the end of February 2019. The US Administration is changing their mind. Why do I say this, because they stated this on the 24^th January 2019: “The United States welcomes the Congolese Constitutional Court’s certification of Felix Tshisekedi as the next President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). We are committed to working with the new DRC government” (…) “The United States salutes the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo for their insistence on a peaceful and democratic ‎transfer of power” (U.S. Department of State, 24.01.2019).

This all seems like all fun and games right? That the US is ready to be there and support Felix Tshisekedi and his new administration. That Washington D.C. would give assistance and help the newly minted President in the DRC. Therefore, with the salute and the celebration message of January seems weird today, as the U.S. Department of State stated this:

“The Secretary of State is publicly designating, due to their involvement in significant corruption relating to the electoral process, the following individuals: Mr. Corneille Nangaa, President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (D.R.C.) National Independent Electoral Commission (CENI); Mr. Norbert Basengezi Katintima, Vice President of CENI; Mr. Marcellin Mukolo Basengezi, Advisor to the President of CENI; Mr. Aubin Minaku Ndjalandjoko, President of the D.R.C.’s National Assembly; and Mr. Benoit Lwamba Bindu, President of the D.R.C.’s Constitutional Court. This public designation is being made under Section 7031(c) of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act of 2019, (Div. F, P.L. 116-6-)” (…) “The Secretary of State is also imposing visa restrictions on election officials as well as military and government officials believed to be responsible for, complicit in, or to have engaged in human rights violations or abuses or undermining of the democratic process in the D.R.C. These individuals enriched themselves through corruption, or directed or oversaw violence against people exercising their rights of peaceful assembly and freedom of expression. They operated with impunity at the expense of the Congolese people and showed a blatant disregard for democratic principles and human rights” (U.S. Department of State, 22.02.2019).

So, between the 24^th January and the 22^nd February 2019 the U.S. Department of State, went from saluting and welcomed the certification of Tshisekedi, but today they are sanctioning the fellows who made that possible. If that isn’t a double play or even foul. Because the US should either not verify and celebrate something… for later changing their minds. This isn’t a place of pitching stories and seeing, which seems the most feasible that moment.

That is what is really unique and special about this. The short paradigm shift of sanctioning the ones that made it possible for Tshisekedi to become the Head of State. They didn’t expect that the US would change this quickly. Surely, Kinshasa should be shocked, the CACH-FCC coalition must wonder, how do we get out of this?

Maybe, next month the US will send their regard and send their love-letters again to Kinshasa. Right now, they are sanctioned. So, it has to change the next month. That is how the U.S. Department of State works, apparently. Let’s Salute Secretary Mike Pompeo and his staff. They are not looking smart, but dumb. Surely, that is protocol under Trump, so that they are making their President looking smarter. Peace.

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Communique de Presse relatif a la visite de S.E.M. Felix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo, President de la Republique Democratique du Congo (Brazzaville, les 7 et 8 fevier 2019) – (08.02.2019)

Botswana: “Refusal by Some Leaders to Hand Over Power” (26.02.2018)

RDC: Communique du Comite Laic De Coordination (25.02.2018)

RDC: Moise Katumbi – “Declaration de soutien a l’appel du Comite laic pour la marche du 25 fevier 2018” (23.02.2018)

RDC: G7 Communique (22.02.2018)

RDC: Lucha – “Mise au point au sujet des allegations de soutien a la CENI et sur les manifestations de ces 23 et 25 fevier 2018” (21.02.2018)

RDC: Communique de la Coordonnatrice Humanitaire en Republique Democratique du Congo suite a la Mort de Deux Travailleurs Humanitaires au Nord-Kivu (19.02.2018)

RDC – CENCO: “Declaration de la Conference Episcopale Nationale du Congo – A l’issue de l’Assemblee Pleniere Extraordinaire du 15 au 17 Fevier 2018” (17.02.2018)

World Food Programme Broadens Operation to Stem Severe Hunger in Democratic Republic of Congo’s Kasai Region (16.02.2018)

Assessments showed that 3.2 million people, a quarter of the region’s population of mostly subsistence farmers, were desperately short of Food.

KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of Congo, February 16, 2018 -In the face of escalating violence, daunting logistical challenges and insufficient funding, the United Nations World Food Programme is energizing two key elements of its emergency operation to prevent famine in war-ravaged Kasai: cash distributions to the most vulnerable and specialist support to check acute malnutrition in women and young children.

Since the launch last week of the cash initiative – a cost-efficient alternative to in-kind support that allows beneficiaries to buy what they want in recovering local markets – 38,000 people have received the equivalent of US$15 each for a month, enough to meet their basic food needs. The intention is to more than double that reach in the coming weeks.

Recent airlifts from France of Plumpy’Sup, a micronutrient-rich ready-to-use supplementary food, have enabled a significant scale-up of WFP’s nutrition interventions in Kasai: 56,000 malnourished children treated in January, up from 21,000 in the final quarter of last year. The number is to grow by 20,000 a month, to 140,000 in June.

“The nutrition and cash programmes are life-saving, and must quickly expand”, said Claude Jibidar, WFP’s Representative in DRC. “We’re not doing nearly as much as we could in Kasai because the obstacles are huge. But unless we collectively rise to the challenges, many more people, including the weakest women and children, will die”.

WFP launched its assistance programme following the eruption of brutal political and ethnic violence in mid-2016 that claimed countless lives, razed entire villages and forced hundreds of thousands of families from their homes. Assessments showed that 3.2 million people, a quarter of the region’s population of mostly subsistence farmers, were desperately short of food.

Without a prior presence in Kasai, between September and December last year WFP achieved a tenfold increase in the number of people receiving food rations, to 400,000. But lagging donations forced a heavy reliance on scarce internal funds, and a halving of those rations – of cereal, beans, vegetable oil and salt – in November.

Continued funding constraints, an upsurge in fighting between pro- and anti-government forces and a rapid, rainy season deterioration of the already poor road network saw the number receiving half-rations drop to 130,000 in January.

“That reversal has to be corrected, and quickly”, said Jibidar. “We’ve shown we have capacity to deliver, but to reach sufficient scale we need the fighting to stop and donors to step up”.

Limited funding is also a major challenge in the eastern DRC provinces of Tanganyika and South Kivu, where WFP is scaling up to meet the needs of growing conflict-displaced populations as part of a broad push by UN agencies and NGOs.