Yes, unfortunately, they are likely to be disenfranchised. I believe that's one of the goals of this effort to destabilize. That's why I said earlier that the situation in Ituri had been framed as an inter-tribal conflict. During the UDPS convention on March 30 and 31, when I was elected as leader of the party, a delegation of our Ituri representatives arrived in Kinshasa and we wanted to know more.
They told us that the tribes were not in fact fighting. The delegation included a member from each of the two tribes said to be fighting, the Lendu and the Hema. They came to Kinshasa together and told us, “Look at us: we are here together; we are not fighting.” Unknown individuals, brigades, are going to the region and killing members of one tribe to make people think the other tribe is to blame. Those are the people trying to create tension between the two tribes. The goal is to displace people and, as a result, many of them have fled to Uganda. They are voters, but they are gone. What that means is that not enough people will be voting in that region of the country.
It is important to note that all of this is happening in regions that are known to be hostile to Mr. Kabila. In Kasaï, those responsible for the infamous humanitarian crisis were trying to drive out the population so that voter registration would be very low and Kasaïan voters—traditionally anti-Kabila—could not vote. Those are the ingredients in the recipe Mr. Kabila is following to make the situation unbearable.
