Aid and abet: DRC government sniffs out alleged infiltrators and coup enablers among its own ranks

The Congolese Republican Guard and police block a road around the scene of an attempted Coup in Gombe, Kinshasa on 20 May 2024 (Arsene Mpiana/AFP)

• The  Democratic Republic of Congo’s state security minister suspects coup plotters had inside assistance.
• The apparent coup leader, Christian Malanga, has been traced to several different countries and groups.
• Catholic bishops have distanced themselves from Malanga, after pictures of them meeting him circulated.

The weekend’s failed coup in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) could have had assistance from within, some in government believe, and the search is now on for “infiltrators”.

“There were accomplices who allowed the attackers to enter the capital with weapons,” DRC Interior, Security and Customary Affairs Minister Peter Kazadi said in a discussion on the country’s Radio Okapi.

The “infiltration problem” across all institutions cannot be ignored, he said, because the government now knows the coup attackers “did not act alone; there are certainly correspondents who are in our ranks somewhere”.

So far, President Felix Tshisekedi has not spoken about the foiled putsch.

Getting weapons into the DRC presents little difficulty.

“There is a proliferation of weapons everywhere. It’s as if weapons are being sold like hotcakes in the hands of unauthorised people,” said John-César Bofaka, the director of operations for the National Commission for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons.

READ MORE | Fringe DRC politician killed in foiled coup attempt – US business partner arrested

In the eastern part of the DRC, an estimated 300 000 small weapons are in the hands of civilians.

But the small band of insurrectionists made it inside a complex that should have been well guarded, and that has sown suspicion about both the possibility of a broader conspiracy and who was involved on the ground.

Christian Malanga, the apparent leader of the coup plot, was killed during the attempt.

Since then, his roots have been traced to the US, where he married twice; to Eswatini, where he funded a charity; to Mozambique, where he was a partner in a mining venture, and Israel, where he seemingly visited Israeli occupying forces in the West Bank.

There are also pictures and footage of Malanga meeting influential Republicans in the US and Catholic bishops in the DRC.

The latter sought to distance themselves from the coup.

“The despicable acts of this individual do not involve the Catholic Church, neither directly nor remotely,” the bishops  said.

Investigations are ongoing, but it appears that a small band of armed men first targeted the home of Vital Kamerhe, former president of the National Assembly, where they exchanged fire with guards, resulting in the death of one attacker and two guards. They then gained entry to the Palais de la Nation, the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the DRC.

South Africa on Tuesday called for calm and urged the DRC government “to investigate this regrettable incident”.

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