DRC – 3 June 2015

Congo opposition splits threaten first peaceful power transfer
Personal ambition and dissent within Democratic Republic of Congo’s largest opposition party could offer President Joseph Kabila a chance to hang onto power when his term ends, threatening the nation’s first peaceful transition. Splits within the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS), the oldest and traditionally most vociferous opposition party, are marking a turbulent run up to elections due in 2016, when Kabila is meant to step aside after two elected terms.
Following decades of conflict and misrule, Congo is trying to stamp out remaining pockets of rebellion and build on relative stability that has helped it to lure investors and rival Zambia as Africa’s top copper producer.
Reuters

Gunmen attack airport in east Congo, at least one soldier dead
Gunmen attacked the airport in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s largest city, Goma, in an overnight raid that killed at least one government soldier, a local governor and a military official said on Tuesday.
Witnesses in the city, home to around 1 million people and capital of Congo’s volatile North Kivu province, said they heard intermittent heavy gunfire for several hours beginning around 2300 GMT, on Monday. North Kivu governor Julien Paluku did not identify the attackers, referring to them only as “bandits”.
Channel NewsAsia

Lawyer dares DRC general to prove claims
A SENIOR general from the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo found himself under crossfire of a different kind when he testified in a civil case being heard in the Windhoek High Court yesterday. General François Olenga is due to return to the witness stand to continue being cross-examined by lawyer George Coleman today.
Olenga yesterday started to testify in support of a civil claim in which he is suing a Swakopmund-based estate agent, Erwin Sprangers, for US$850 000 (currently the equivalent of about N$10,3 million) as a result of a disputed transaction between him and Sprangers some five years ago. With Olenga claiming that he paid an amount of US$900 000 to Sprangers in September 2010, and that Sprangers has failed and refused to repay all but US$50 000 of that money to him, Coleman put it to the general yesterday that he could not prove that any money at all connected to him had been transferred to a bank account of Sprangers’ estate agency. He can prove it, Olenga responded.
The Namibian