A heavy presence of military has been deployed in Grand Katanga which President Félix Tshisekedi says is the boiling point ahead of the elections on December 20, 2023.
Majority of the personnel in the military are Kasaï, President Tshisekedi’s tribesmates, and are littered across the province in the guise of trying to deal with insecurity in the region.
Sources have disclosed that the soldiers, who are collaborating with Russians, are in Katanga to massacre the population and send fear ahead of the elections this year.
Grand Katanga, divided in four regions that include Lualaba, Haut-Katanga, Tanganyika and Lomami, is one of the opposition stronghold.
“The ruling party is scared of what is coming ahead. The people all of Congo are determined to vote them out. Grand Katanga is resolved and bring a lot of votes to the table, they are not voting Tshisekedi. No. His mandate is over and he is going whether he like it or not,” a resident of Kasenga, says pleading anonymity.
So far, the rogue military of Tshisekedi massacred youths belonging to UNAFEC, a party founded by the late Gabriel Kyungu Wakumwanza who had clashed over the management of a market by their UDPS counterparts.
Tshisekedi however claims the presence of a huge military deployment is as a result of intelligence information about the activism of armed groups of Bakata Katanga or the Mai-Mai who seek to secede.
Military barriers have since been installed along the roads leading to Pweto center. The local authorities have moved to quell the fears saying the military positions called “hot spots” are not barriers or checkpoints.
“There are no more barriers in the territory of Pweto. The security situation is under the control of the local, provincial and national authorities. The government had taken measures to remove all that had as a barrier,” says Derby Lumbwe, an administrator for the region.
