SOUTHSCAN
A Bulletin of Southern African Affairs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Online at www.SouthScan.NET
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Vol.18/25 12 December 2003
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
(c) Copyright reserved in all countries
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Congo (SouthScan v18/25 12 Dec 03): Kabila is named in Japanese sect laundering scam
Just as ministers in the transitional government of the DR Congo were preparing to attend the World Bank Consultative meeting in Paris next week, President Joseph Kabila's name appeared in a extravagant money laundering scandal involving a Japanese sect.
Two Belgian dailies, Le Soir and La Libre Belgique, reported on Friday (December 12) that the number two official in a Japanese sect called Kashin was arrested on the Wednesday in Brussels on charges of money laundering. The money was alleged to have come from a swindle in Japan which Belgian police sources say could amount to US$200m. The funds were then redistributed in the sect's global network with bases in Belgium, China, Tanzania and the DRC.
According to Le Soir the leader of the sect, Riichiro Ohashi, is suspected of having embezzled 5,000 Japanese citizens of a billion Yen (800m Euros). Part of this was invested in real estate properties in Belgium before being laundered and the plans were to reinvest in several projects in the Congo.
La Libre Belgique quotes a Belgian justice spokesperson as saying that the investments were planned through "personal contracts" with Joseph Kabila, the Congo's president. The funds were collected from 2001 in Japan and handed over to the then minister for reconstruction in the DRC, Gen. Denis Kalume. But the latter denies that he received money from the Japanese "investors".
The projects did not materialise but La Libre Belgique suggests nevertheless that Kabila cashed in on some of the commissions.
Several sources confirm the links between the Kinshasa regime and the Kashin sect in the Congo. The Kinshasa press mentions the inauguration ceremony for Kashin's subsidiary, the 'Congo Development Company', run by a certain Baudouin Kayokola, at the Grand Hotel in the capital on April 9 last year. Riichiro Ohashi was there with the Japanese ambassador to the DRC, the then governor of Kinshasa, Prof. Loka ne Kongo, and of the minister of reconstruction, Kalume.
At the time a certain Jean-Pierre Kabongo, who presented himself as the CEO of a company called the Congolese Financing Bank (CFB), told the Kinshasa press that it would finance the activities of the Congo Development Company.
More than year earlier, in December 2000, the Paris-based Africa Energy Intelligence newsletter reported talks between the "Kashin group" and the Kinshasa authorities on a number of projects, none of which have subsequently been implemented.
These include the construction of a second power line between the Inga dam and Katanga, the rehabilitation of the port of Matadi and of the railway line between Kinshasa and Matadi.
Kengo faces charges
Interestingly, copies of the Belgian press articles were circulating on Friday among friends of former Prime Minister Leon Kengo wa Dondo who accompanied him to a Kinshasa court building where he had been summoned to answer charges about his alleged embezzlement of $60m while in office.
The issue has become a serious bone of contention. About 100 members of parliament (one out of six of the national assembly and the senate combined) from all political groups have signed a letter to the president condemning the action as going against the spirit of national reconciliation. They also attacked the "discriminatory" nature of the accusations, arguing that former ministers or officials from the Mobutu and Kabila regimes had court cases pending but are not being prosecuted simply because they sit in the government. The issue has created some tension in the capital.
Since his return to Kinshasa on the November 16 (SouthScan v18/23), the prime minister for former president Mobutu Sese Seko has been subject to all kinds of harassment. On the day of his return from a seven-year exile the cars of his supporters were stoned near the airport. Later, Kengo told SouthScan that he was convinced that the Minister of Interior, Theophile Mbemba, was largely responsible since the police did nothing to prevent people hurling stones at the cars and failed to arrest any of them.
Then, when Kengo decided to leave the country for Belgium on December 7, the immigration authorities stopped him and seized his passport.
Kengo and his relatives believe that they have been lured back by Kabila's cabinet director, Evariste Boshab who, prior to Kengo's return had assured him that he could return and would not face legal action. Boshab was answering a request by Kengo to Joseph Kabila for the return of his Kinshasa houses.
On the Thursday (December 11) Kengo was placed under de facto house arrest, with military circling the house he had rented in the Gombe central district of Kinshasa. On the following day, he was allowed to go to the court to answer the questions of the state prosecutor.
Kengo's lawyers consider that the entire issue is political since in the current Congolese political system the president of the republic is the only person who can decide on prosecution of former members of the executive.
__________
Region (SouthScan v18/25 12 Dec 03): Tensions after Ugandan army returns from war
Certain knock-on effects are following the damping down of war in the eastern DR Congo, and the withdrawal of Ugandan and Rwandan forces may affect stability in the Congo's close neighbours.
In Uganda there has been a dual effect following withdrawal from the DRC and peace seeming about to return to Sudan. President Yoweri Museveni now has to ensure that the post-deployment income of his soldiers remains high. However, some of the returnees are hungry for power and he has announced a purge of top officers, particularly after their poor showing in battles with the rebel Lord's Resistance Army in the north.
The deep mistrust between Museveni and regular Ugandan People's Defence Force officers has been highlighted by his increasing reliance on 10,000 strong Presidential Guard, which is now heavily equipped. His son, Maj. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, has assumed more responsibilities.
Twenty-eight senior officers were cashiered, of whom nine face a military court for alleged corruption and fomenting mutiny.
Ten senior officers affected were Bahima, a tribe to which Museveni belongs, while four senior Acholi officers brought in earlier as a reconciliation gesture (Brig. Nakibus Lakara, chief of staff, and his deputy Col. Mark Kodil, Col. Fred Tolit deputy chief of military intelligence, Brigadier J.Oketa in personnel and administration) were also dismissed.
Museveni's tough stance is highlighted in his move against the Hima officers. Four of them - Major General James Kazini, Col. John Mugume, Col. Henry Tumukunde and Brigadier Stephen Kashaka - are to face a military court, The Ugandan Monitor newspaper reported that the purge could be aimed at targeting troops loyal to former army commander Kazini, who was sacked in June this year after being accused in a UN report of plundering the Congo's mineral resources, He was sent to the army training college in Nigeria.
The purges follow two commission reports on malpractice in the UPDF. The Julia Sebutinde commission discovered corruption, while Lt. Gen. David Tinyefuza's commission found an estimated 5000 -10,000 'ghost' soldiers for whom wages were being claimed.
Suspicions are that Museveni is alienating his Hima tribesmen in favour of his family, which is increasingly visible in political, business and military affairs, and wants to create a dynasty.
The purge has also highlighted the limits to the strategy of patronage he extended to many Hima officers. They were allowed to amass wealth in the DRC and Sudan in the hope that they would be satisfied with financial gain, but it has not turned out so.
BT Yahoo! Broadband - Save �80 when you order online today. Hurry! Offer ends 21st December 2003. The way the internet was meant to be.
