News from the DRC
(That would be the Democratic Republic of Congo)
Joseph Kabila, incumbent and current holder of the 'World's Hottest Leader' crown, was re-elected.
As a brief primer, Kabila is the son of guerilla leader Laurent Kabila, who deposed (with the help of Rwanda and Uganda) Mobutu Sese Seko (Kuku Ngbendu wa za Banga), the last lion of the larger-than-life independence era dictators. Laurent Kabila (did I write about this before? Too lazy to go look) was an old-time marxist who fought with Che during his brief stint in Africa, but once he came into power he was crap. He was eventually assassinated by his own security detail and his son Joseph took over. Joseph has a military background and was raised largely in Tanzania and trained with Museveni in Uganda and Kagame in Rwanda. He also studied at the Military College in Beijing, interestingly.
Joseph Kabila fascinates me, not only because of his hotness, and not only because we are of a similar age and he is a Major-General and President of Congo and I am writing from a cubicle in Midtown. He also inherited the presidency from his father (always a little dicey), managed to keep the country together (extremely dicey), signed some real peace accords, allowed the largest UN peacekeeping force in the world into Congo, and then held actual elections, the first real ones since independence (and therefore the first real ones). So although there are allegations of some voter intimidation, and I don't think there's really such thing as a "good guy" in this area, I'm pretty cool with Kabila.
Unfortunately, his rival Jean-Pierre Bemba (Vice-President and militia leader accused of war crimes and cannibalism) has refused to accept the results. It looks like Kabila won the East and Bemba the West (including Kinshasa). That's interesting because the majority of the continual fighting has taken place in the East along the borders with Rwanda and Burundi (because the current conflict grew out of the genocidaires leaving Rwanda and coming into Congo, and then the Rwandan army coming after them into Congo) and those are the people who went with Kabila. In the rest of the country, where the war has not been as much of a concern, the support was for Bemba. I don't quite know what to make of that.
Anyway, with Bamba rejecting the vote, things might get rough. This would really suck, as the Congo conflict, raging more or less continuously since 1994, has taken more than 4,000,000 lives and is the most lethal war in the world.
So now you know.
Joseph Kabila, incumbent and current holder of the 'World's Hottest Leader' crown, was re-elected.
As a brief primer, Kabila is the son of guerilla leader Laurent Kabila, who deposed (with the help of Rwanda and Uganda) Mobutu Sese Seko (Kuku Ngbendu wa za Banga), the last lion of the larger-than-life independence era dictators. Laurent Kabila (did I write about this before? Too lazy to go look) was an old-time marxist who fought with Che during his brief stint in Africa, but once he came into power he was crap. He was eventually assassinated by his own security detail and his son Joseph took over. Joseph has a military background and was raised largely in Tanzania and trained with Museveni in Uganda and Kagame in Rwanda. He also studied at the Military College in Beijing, interestingly.
Joseph Kabila fascinates me, not only because of his hotness, and not only because we are of a similar age and he is a Major-General and President of Congo and I am writing from a cubicle in Midtown. He also inherited the presidency from his father (always a little dicey), managed to keep the country together (extremely dicey), signed some real peace accords, allowed the largest UN peacekeeping force in the world into Congo, and then held actual elections, the first real ones since independence (and therefore the first real ones). So although there are allegations of some voter intimidation, and I don't think there's really such thing as a "good guy" in this area, I'm pretty cool with Kabila.
Unfortunately, his rival Jean-Pierre Bemba (Vice-President and militia leader accused of war crimes and cannibalism) has refused to accept the results. It looks like Kabila won the East and Bemba the West (including Kinshasa). That's interesting because the majority of the continual fighting has taken place in the East along the borders with Rwanda and Burundi (because the current conflict grew out of the genocidaires leaving Rwanda and coming into Congo, and then the Rwandan army coming after them into Congo) and those are the people who went with Kabila. In the rest of the country, where the war has not been as much of a concern, the support was for Bemba. I don't quite know what to make of that.
Anyway, with Bamba rejecting the vote, things might get rough. This would really suck, as the Congo conflict, raging more or less continuously since 1994, has taken more than 4,000,000 lives and is the most lethal war in the world.
So now you know.
posted by chiniqua at 2:40 PM
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