Cracks widen in Bunia-based group

The leadership wrangles in the ruling movement based in the northeastern DRC city of Bunia appear to be widening with a rival faction vowing to dislodge the embattled leader, Professor Ernest Wamba dia Wamba.

Over the last two weeks, Bunia has been rocked by fighting pitting Wamba, who leads the Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie-Mouvement de liberation (RCD-ML), against his former deputies, Mbusa Nyamwisi and Tibasiima Ateenyi, who are seeking to oust him. At least 40 people have been killed in the violence.

The two say “it is finished” for Wamba and his leadership of the movement is “history”, a notion which Uganda’s presidential adviser on Congo, Colonel Kahinda Otafiire, termed as “nonsense”. “We shall see,” he told IRIN on Wednesday. Uganda is attempting to broker a meeting in Kampala between the rival factions and Nyamwisi told IRIN his presence in the Ugandan capital was to “help pull Wamba out of Bunia” and meet Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni “if he so requests”.

“Meeting Wamba is not on our agenda,” Nyamwisi said. “We are happy that he got out of Bunia alive.” Wamba, who is backed by the mainstream Ugandan army, is also in Kampala.

Nyamwisi said Wamba was given “every opportunity” to make it as leader of the group “but he failed”. “We are always running to Kampala to disturb President Museveni to help us solve these little leadership problems,” he noted. “He [Wamba] is a poor leader, who divides people. Whenever we tried to show dissatisfaction, Uganda kept him on top.”

“Our position is clear, Professor Wamba is not our leader, he has to leave Bunia,” the second former deputy president, Tibasiima Ateenyi, added. He maintained that Wamba was no longer the RCD-ML leader, blaming him for “factionalising” the movement, notably in Bafwasende, where an RCD-ML dissident Roger Lumbala started a movement called RCD-Nationale and in Beni where the governor, Bwanakawa Nyonyi set up the RCD-Populaire.

Wamba insists he is still the RCD-ML leader. “All this is just talk, unless the colonel [Otafiire] goes on radio and announces otherwise,” he told IRIN from Kampala. Tanzania and Mozambique are due to attend the Kampala meeting as observers, and according to Wamba, the talks had not yet taken place because “the observers” had not yet arrived.

Sources in Bunia told IRIN on Wednesday the situation in the city was calm, although the military were still maintaining their positions.
Residents were anxiously awaiting the outcome of the Kampala meeting and the reaction of the “all powerful” President Museveni, the sources added.