Military fatigues, machine gun on his shoulder and red beret, this is how Christian Malanga Musumari, relatively unknown until then, burst onto the scene in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Sunday May 19. This 41-year-old Congolese, naturalized American, appeared surrounded by several dozen men, including his son Marcel Malanga, 21, in a video posted on social networks where he claimed to have taken power by brandishing the Zaire flag, the old name of the DRC. A brief demand which ended tragically the same day with his death, that of four of his associates and the arrest of around 40 others, according to the spokesperson for the Congolese army.
In the early morning, around 4:30 a.m., the commando attacked the home of Vital Kamerhe, the Minister of the Economy, then still waiting to be elected President of the Assembly, in the upscale district of Gombe. Two police officers and an assailant died in the exchange of fire, according to General Sylvain Ekenge, army spokesperson. The attackers then invaded the “Palace of the Nation” not far away, which houses the offices of Félix Tshisekedi.
Christian Malanga’s story begins in Kinshasa on January 2, 1983, before his family took refuge in South Africa and then in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, in 1998. Christian Malanga introduces himself in his biography online as “a businessman, philanthropist and former Congolese military veteran.” After working as a car dealer for a time in Utah, he returned to the DRC in 2006, at the age of 23, to carry out his military service and became a captain in the Congolese army.
Self-proclaimed president
In 2011, he ran as an independent in the legislative elections. A failure. After this setback, Christian Malanga returned to the United States in 2012 where he founded the United Congolese Party, an opposition microparty based in Washington. Five years later, he created an alternative government, the “new Zairean government in exile” in Brussels, from where he proclaimed himself “president of New Zaire”.
Although he does not hesitate to appear during military training in videos filmed in Switzerland, Belgium or the United States, Christian Malanga is also launching into the mining sector in the DRC, at the head of the Malanga Congo company. In Mozambique, in 2022, he founded CCB Mining Solutions, a mining investment company seeking artisanal gold concessions, according to the specialist site Africa Intelligence. He controls it equally with two Americans: Cole Ducey and Benjamin Zalman-Polun. The latter, active in the medicinal cannabis sector in the United States, is one of those arrested by the Congolese army on May 19.
Other Westerners, “a white American” and “a naturalized British subject, number two in the group” were arrested, detailed General Sylvain Ekenge. One of them was filmed during his arrest on the banks of the Congo River.
Fragility of power
The operation was a failure but it raised questions. How were the attackers able to get so easily to the Palais de la Nation in one of the most militarized districts of the capital? Did they benefit from internal complicity? “Either there was a huge failure in the intelligence services, or there was complicity,” said Fred Bauma, researcher and executive director of the Congolese Ebuteli Institute.
“Christian Malanga could not have acted alone. It is difficult to imagine forty armed men storming the presidential palace,” adds Dino Mahtani. Independent researcher and former political advisor to the UN, the latter recalls that Christian Malanga was in contact with John Tshibangu between 2016 and 2017. At the time, this army colonel had defected, accused of having sought to overthrow President Joseph Kabila.
MM. Tshibangu and Malanga had become closer to former Mobutist soldiers from the Equateur region. Which could explain the Zairian flags brandished during their coup attempt. Imprisoned several times, John Tshibangu was released in 2020, pardoned and then appointed commander of the 21st military region, in the center of the DRC.
If gray areas still hover over this operation which turned into a fiasco, it reveals at the very least the fragility of power and the tensions which continue to animate political life in the DRC.