Troops loyal to South African presidential hopeful Jacob Zuma have arrived in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in preparation for a coup against the incumbent President, Joseph Kabila.
The coup is believed to be financed by a shadowy conglomerate with links to the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL), which has an interest in the diamond mines at Mbuji Mayi in the DRC, as well as logging concessions.
Having lost funding by mining magnate Brett Kebble, and directorships in Kebble’s stable of companies, the ANCYL is keen to find new sources of income with which to foot the bill for its ‘babe magnet” BMWs and to buy new black economic empowerment directorships. It is also interested in acquiring Maseratis such as that allegedly crashed by Tony Yengeni in the Cape last year.
To save time, the first planeload of troops has already landed in the central business district of Kinshasa, while a second wave is on its way north. They are apparently not bothering with Goma and the eastern Congo, as there has been an outbreak of Ebola fever in the region. Vulcanologists have also indicated that two of Goma’s volcanoes are winding up for major eruptions.
The coup leaders are understood to have hired Mark Thatcher as a strategic adviser.
The South African government, taken by surprise at the move, has been swift to make clear that the troops involved in the coup are mercenaries, not official South African military. The government is still trying to contact President Thabo Mbeki, who is on a lengthy diplomatic visit to Outer Mongolia, to find out what to do about the situation.
At present, the DRC diamond mines and logging industries are being exploited by Zimbabwean troops, who have been allowed to pillage whatever they like because Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe can’t pay them regular wages. However, a spokesperson for the coup leaders said it was ‘time for the Zimbabweans to move on, as they have had their turn”.
Kabila, whose secret police quashed a suspected internal coup last May, supports the Zimbabweans, and the arrangement is already in place that Mbuji Mayi diamonds are sold to Russian interests, who then sell them on to the cartels at wildly inflated prices.
‘They say that they are coming for the diamonds,” Kabila said in an interview with al-Jazeera’s new Africa bureau, ‘but we believe that this Mr Zuma, whose presidential hopes in South Africa are limited, would now like to be a president of somewhere else. He has the fleet of cars, the mercenary forces, the bodyguards, the backing of mining interests and a personal relationship with the French government through his links with various French arms companies. In short, he is a classic African dictator in search of a palace.”
Kabila, who, unlike his father, does not eat two roast fowl for breakfast every morning, added: ‘Anyone actually wanting to take over Congo must either be young and impressionable, as I was, or completely out of their minds. In this country, even the mountain gorillas carry AK-47s.
‘Further, Robert Mugabe has made friends with China. By kicking Zimbawean ass in Mbuji Mayi, the South Africans may win the approval of Britain, but they will soon find themselves in a prickly diplomatic situation with Beijing. And, as we all know, it’s a really bad idea to throw stones at the Sleeping Dragon.”
Funding for the coup is believed to have flowed from the Middle East, in particular Saudi Arabia, where Schabir Shaik and his family have been engaged on a lengthy pilgrimage to Mecca. United States advisers in eastern Congo have reported that suspected members of the ANCYL have been attempting to recruit the last of the Rwandan interahamwe to bolster their numbers in the coup, while in Sudan, several unidentified South Africans have been in alleged consultation with the Janjaweed militia regarding population-calming methods.
Attempts to contact the ANCYL for comment were met with a message on an answering machine stating that its leaders were ‘on urgent business in Africa”, while a spokesperson for Zuma stated that the former deputy president was too busy to talk to the media as he was about to leave for his own pilgrimage to Mecca.
Funding may also be flowing from al-Qaeda and its various offshoots, as the organisation would like a new country, preferably with areas that will present severe logistical difficulties for US troops, in which to base itself and to set up new training camps. —