Joseph Kabila the guy who luck shined on ( Part 1)

Joseph Kabila

Introduction

This is an article about how a quiet, body building, martial arts fan became the President of the DRC. It will trace how fate and luck placed him in that seat. How Joseph led child soldiers called kadogos on an epic march in an adventure most people would call improbable.

How Joseph unlike most men with money and power has stayed faithful to his sweetheart of his early days and made her officially his wife despite them already having children. How Joseph was nearly executed by his father. How a friend of his father hid him and was to later put Joseph in a Zimbabwean Jet fighter and fly him to Kinshasa to succeed his father. How Joseph survived intrigue which started with people doubting his very nationality. How he survived the challenge of another rich kid who almost beat him in an election and how they settled the argument on the streets of Kinshasa as their two armies slugged it out. All in all why he is such a lucky guy. Why now is the time for him to quit and not ride his luck too far. I will also post in French. I plan six to eight parts.

WHO KILLED MZEE, PAPA KABILA AND THE MYSTERY SURROUNDING HIS DEATH PART 5 (warning this is one of the longest parts).

The Congo War had rumbled to a stalemate and the Zimbabweans, Angolans, Namibians, Chadians had stabilised the front against the Ugandans, Rwandese and Burundese troops.
Papa Kabila was short of guns, short of men and even short of victories. Joseph “Schwarznegger” Kabila his favourite son, was now commander of the Congolese Army. With the help of the Zimbabweans and Angolans he had managed to keep the major money spinners for the Congo out of Rwandese and Ugandan hands with the diamonds of Mbuji Mayi and the copper, cobalt, gold of Katanga firmly in Kabila’s controls.

A whole of charaters were now involved in many intrigues and plots around the DRC. One of the surprising players was a young Israeli businessman. Dan Gertler was a young (27 years old) Orthodox Jew. His family was rich from trading diamonds but Dan Gertler wanted to be his own man. Born in December 1973, Dan Gertler is the grandson of Moshe Schnitzer, who was the founder and first President of the Israeli Diamond Exchange and 2004 winner of the Israel Prize (the most prestigious award issued by the State of Israel) for lifetime achievement in recognition of his contribution to Israeli society and the State.

An enthusiastic diamond-dealer even as a teenager, Dan Gertler learned the secrets of the trade not only from his father but also from his grandfather’s life-long experience. He spent time with both of them during school holidays and whenever else he was able. Even while carrying out his three-year mandatory service in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), all of his free time was spent either at the offices of his father or grandfather, learning and practicing the essentials of the diamond business. He started his own firm and looked at where he could get his hands on diamonds. Congo looked like a good bet. Not only did Congo have a lot of diamonds but in neighboring Angola a lot of diamonds where smuggled into Congo. Dan may have been a very young man but he always thought big.

He flew into Congo and studied the situation, he then made a fantastic contact. Augustine Katumba Mwanke, Governor of Katanga and money man for the Kabila government. Katumba Mwanke, the cool, suave polygamous Bemba speaking Katangese governor had a soft spot for Joseph Kabila and there was something about this big earnest intelligent young Jew. He introduced Joseph Kabila to Dan Gertler and a lifelong friendship began.

Dan Gertler spun a story that both Katumba Mwanke and Joseph Kabila found tempting. Dan Gertler’s startling offer was as follows for $200 Million upfront could Papa Kabila give him a monopoly on all diamonds in the Congo? $200 million was a lot of money. It would enable Papa Kabila to create a new army and pay it well and equip it. Gertler even threw in the offer of Israeli military gear and trainers. Papa Kabila liked the proposition and went for it hook, line and sinker. Short of cash and men, Kabila ever the nationalist felt he did not want to depend on foreigners even if they where friendly foreigners.

UNITA were losing the war but to keep the war they needed to sell diamonds. Their Ugandan and Rwandese friends could help and so could their Zambian friends but none of these countries had the necessary connections and networks to move large quantities of diamonds. Congo has diamonds. Lots of diamonds more diamonds infact than Angola, so many diamonds that UNITA could safely hide their diamonds among the Congolese diamonds.
UNITA began to get diamonds into Congo and Kabila cash hungry as usual eventually got into the act. Discreetly so as not to piss off the Angolans, UNITA diamonds found an outlet through Congo.
The Angolans began to get intelligence of UNITA diamond operations in Congo. The Angolan President Eduardo dos Santos, a Soviet trained petrochemical engineer, is outwardly a very quiet and reserved man. This however does not mean he is not a decisive and ruthless man. Dos Santos was not one to allow treachery of the level exhibited by Kabila to go unpunished.

Dos Santos had men close to Kabila who were reportedly reporting Kabila’s activities to Luanda. Kabila’s trust of people from Katanga had led him to Katumba Mwanke. It had also led to appointing a Portuguese speaking, former Katangese Tiger, Eddy Kapend as his military aide. Infact Eddy Kapend had an office next to Papa Kapila. The commander of military forces in Kinshasa was General Yav Naweej, a royal Lunda prince who was also connected to Luanda.

The kadogos were very restless. These were Kabila’s boy soldiers and were Papa Kabila”s most loyal troops. Nicknamed the “little green men” in reference to the color of their boots, they were best known under the name “kadogos” the “child soldiers”. They had been with Kabila since the early days of the rebellion against Mobutu. Ranging in age from as young as 10 to as old as 25, these were the children who had fought for Kabila. They had marched right across Congo. Infiltrating enemy positions, the Zairean Army and the Zimbabweans as well had not caught on that the little boys playing around their positions were spies and in certain cases snipers and soldiers !!!

In October 1996, when the rebellion against Mobutu started in the east of the former Zaire, these children were in the hundreds. Then, along the way, more than 1500 kilometers through a “country-continent” they became thousands. Dressed in their olive green uniforms, their bare feet in rubber boots. They were young, very young. Sometimes as young as ten years old. An Astonished city watched as they entered Kinshasa on 17 May 1997, without firing a shot and always walking in long columns. Well discplined and very loyal to Kabila, the residents of the capital nicknamed “kadogos” the “child soldiers.”

The kadogo were led by Anselm Masasu, a young man born in Bukavu Southern Kivu in 1969. Masasu was a close friend of Joseph Kabila. In 1996 they even lived together in a house in Gabba Beach, Kampala Uganda.

The kadogo being young and illiterate were basically forgotten in the hustle and bustle of forming a new government. They guarded Kabila but they did not get promotions or the cars others enjoyed and even their pay was irregular. One incident embarrassed the Kabila regime. One day, Mrs Kabila was driving out of the Presidential Palace when she was confronted by a mob of young kadogos. They shouted out Maman, maman nous avons faim (Mummy, mummy we are hungry).

She was visibly annoyed as nearby Mzee Kabila was dining al fresco with guests both Ministers and businessmen. She told them to go to the chicken run behind the palace and kill all the chickens there and eat. The young soldiers did as she said. It was however an ominous sign. The kadogo were getting ideas beyond their status.

In November 2000, the war was hotting up once again in Katanga near Pweto. Papa Kabila sent Joseph to Pweto and built up a big force there. He also asked for help from Zimbabawe who provided artillery and armour. Papa Kabila had bought T-62 tanks from North Korea and had rearmed the army. Joseph recently returned from a military course in China would lead the new offensive.