Two Sandton-based ex-military generals of the late Mobutu Sese Seko have been held for travelling illegally, reports Ann Eveleth
Two of former Zairean dictator Mobutu Sese Seko’s closest military cohorts – arrested in Johannesburg on Saturday – allegedly spoke openly about their plans to topple Mobutu’s successor, Laurent Kabila, in an uprising which had been scheduled to start this weekend..
Businessmen from the renamed Democratic Republic of the Congo living in Johannesburg told foreign journalists last month that former Zairean generals Kpama Baramoto and Ngbale Nzimbi boasted to them that the “revolution against the dictator” would begin in the Congo province of Bandundu on December 20.
A member of Baramoto’s entourage also told the Mail & Guardian last month the men were attending meetings at two Sandton hotels to “make some strategy of how they can kill Kabila and take the government back”.
Baramoto and Nzimbi, together with former Zairean minister of defence Admiral Mavua Madima, and a physician named Dr Mavula, were arrested by immigration officials at Rand Airport last weekend on their return from a December 12 meeting in the Congo. They had apparently left South Africa undetected, but were arrested when they attempted to re-enter the country with invalid travel documents.
Immigration police this week said the four men had attended a meeting last Friday in the town of Kahemba, about 50km north of the Angolan border. Kahemba is in Bandundu province – the same province from which Baramoto and Nzimbi are alleged to have boasted the “revolution” would start a week later.
The meeting of the generals would also have coincided with Kabila’s absence from the country on a week-long state visit to China, had Kabila’s departure not been delayed to December 13 due to a change in plans by United States Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who met Kabila in Kinshasa a day earlier.
The concurrence of the time and place of the meeting with the earlier utterances of Baramoto, Mobutu’s former army chief of staff, and Nzimbi, the former commander of Mobutu’s presidential guard, lends support to long-standing Congo fears that the men were plotting to overthrow Kabila’s government.
Adding fuel to these claims, the police and National Intelligence Agency (NIA) raid on the generals’ seven Sandton luxury homes after their arrests is understood to have led to the seizure of $30 000 in cash and the discovery of offshore bank accounts containing between $200 000 and $300 000 each. Police also seized several documents, apparently plans written in French, which mentioned Kabila. The documents are now in the possession of the NIA.
Kabila first warned of a planned insurrection by Baramoto and other former military and civilian allies of Mobutu living in Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town in July on Congolese Radio. He alleged at the time that Baramoto had hoarded $80- million in South Africa.
The Congo government handed the South African government a list of 20 Mobutu associates resident in South Africa in August. A September 5 communique to the Department of Foreign Affairs claimed the ex-officials on the list were “initiating actions to create a civil war in the Congo”, and requested the South African and other governments “not to grant visas” to anyone who submitted former Zairean diplomatic passports, which had been cancelled by the Congo.
South Africa undertook to investigate the claims and launched a joint home affairs and NIA probe into the legality of Mobutu’s associates’ visas and their activities in South Africa. However, ironically, had it not been for the alertness of the immigration official processing their re- entry into South Africa last Saturday, it appears they would have got away with their illegal travels.
The Department of Home Affairs said this week the generals had attempted to travel on outdated travel visas issued to them in September – weeks after the South African authorities requested the government not to issue the men visas – to attend Mobutu’s funeral in Morocco. The department said the men had earlier been issued with “stateless passports”, and that Baramoto and Nzimbi were on temporary residence permits in South Africa, for medical and business purposes respectively. It had “no record” of Madima’s presence in South Africa.
Mavula appeared in court this week on charges of giving false information to immigration officials, but the three men, who are being held as prohibited persons, have not.
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It was unclear at the time of publication whether this request would be fulfilled as the two countries have no extradition treaty. Kabila’s government did not, however, submit evidence that the Mobutu associates had been formally charged in their home country, which could have facilitated an extradition.And the NIA, which had undertaken to monitor the activities of the generals, some of whom had large satellite dishes on the roofs of their palatial homes, is understood to have become involved in the latest case only after the arrests, when its agents participated in the search of those homes.The province is, incidentally, also home to a number of former members of Mobutu’s presidential guard and his defeated army.