Wamba admits leadership struggle in rebel movement

The leader of the Bunia-based rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie-Mouvement de liberation (RCD-ML), Ernest Wamba dia Wamba, has admitted there is a leadership struggle within the movement. Speaking to IRIN on Thursday, he said some of his “close assistants” were “attempting a coup”. “There is some kind of crisis,” he said. He claimed they were trying to pre-empt proposed changes in the top ranks of the movement “which have become inevitable due to inefficiencies”.

Wamba’s main challengers are the RCD-ML “premier” Mbusa Nyamwisa and the “deputy premier and finance minister” Atenyi Tibasima. He said a commission was currently drafting rules and regulations for the movement. “To avoid the confusion escalating together with our allies we have decided to set up a commission to draft a text of rules, that will, among other things, spell out job descriptions of who is supposed to do what, so that there is no room for manipulation,” Wamba explained.

Meanwhile, the semi-official Ugandan ‘New Vision’ daily reported that senior Ugandan officials had gone to Bunia in northeast DRC to mediate between the two RCD-ML factions. The delegation includes James Wapakhabulo, the political commissar of the ruling National Resistance Movement, Lieutenant-Colonel Noble Mayombo, the deputy chief of military intelligence, and Colonel Kahinda Otafiire, the Ugandan presidential adviser on Congo. Last month, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni chaired a meeting in Kampala to iron out the RCD-ML rift. “These people assured our president that their differences were over, but problems keep on coming up, definitely something is wrong and we need to be watching the situation,” a senior Ugandan official told IRIN.