RDC: Rassemblement – Pas d’Elections en RDC le 23/12/2018 si les Exigences du Peuple ne sont pas Prises en Compte (18.07.2018)

Today, Kabila held his fairy-tale speech!

Today, Joseph Kabila, the man who has been done with second term on 19th December 2016, which means he has been now 1 year and 7 months on overtime. If you calculate it in days it has been 577 days. That is a long time. Kabila has clearly not only violated the constitution, but the rights for staying in office. He has postponed elections through 2016, done the same after a CENCO Agreement that was supposed to hold an election during the end of 2017. Which didn’t happen either. We are now in July 2018 and still no real signs of an election. Other than new timelines from CENI and a problematic trade off of machines from South Korea.

Therefore, his speech today wasn’t showing signs of anything, other than the usual suspect and defense of sovereign state. There was nothing said that couldn’t been said elsewhere. Kabila could have been any leader anywhere. The speech that doesn’t say if he standing himself as a candidate, if he is accepting the real opposition or not.

Extracted speech from Kabila:

Today, our democratic model has proved its worth, and everyone who tried to improvise as a lesson-maker understood this well. The Congo has never given a lesson to anyone, it is not willing to receive in this area and especially not from those who murdered democracy in this country and elsewhere on the continent” (…) “it is neither the gratuitous and unfounded accusations nor indiscriminate pressures or threats, even less the arbitrary and unjust sanctions that will divert the Congolese from the path that they have drawn themselves voluntarily and freely” (…) “from the contingencies of external financing and, consequently, from blackmail of all kinds in order to create the best conditions for our people. give full legitimacy to those who win these consultations” (…) “Far from being complacent, let alone arrogance, it is a responsible political option that gives meaning to our independence and our national dignity” (…) “The Congo will live forever as a free nation and as a sovereign and independent state” (Joseph Kabila, 19.07.2018).

That Kabila should be more careful and wonder why he is still around, as he has been ruling this republic for two long. He has been the President since his father died and had years without a mandate in the first election in 2006 and than again in 2011. Therefore, with the end of 2016, he should have given the mantle to the next one. Instead, Kabila have done whatever he can linger in power. There is no signs of him stepping down. Especially considering he recently put UN Sanctioned Military Officials in high-ranking positions in the Army. Therefore, expect Kabila not to respect the Constitution or the people.

He shouldn’t be there 577 days on overtime. Kabila has nothing to give the Democratic Republic of Congo. He is only there too loot a bit more and secure his wealth, he is not there because he cares of the governance or service delivery. Kabila is there for selfish reasons and misuse power. The military and the rest is just his props.

The proof is in the pudding. Someone who has used insurgency, used all tricks and all excuses, the lack of funding for the Elections, the lack of care for running the government while becoming wealthy himself. He is showing his arrogance with his speech. There is nothing he will deliver, since he hasn’t been delivering before and will not start now.

He can use cool words, but when your still in power and not respecting the laws yourself. You should not speak of legitimacy, when your illegitimate yourself. Peace.

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.