“The U.N. peacekeeping mission is mandated to partner with the government. In other words, the U.N. is aiding a government that is inflicting predatory behavior against its own people. We should have the decency and common sense to end this.” Nikki Haley — U.S. ambassador to the United Nations

Joseph Kabila, president of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), has hired Israel’s Mer Group to represent his interests in Washington. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY

Joseph Kabila signed a $5.6 million contract with Mer Security and Communication Systems.

According to the contract, Mer Security

“will hire/has hired U.S. entities to set up meetings with senior U.S. administration officials and key policy makers in various Congressional committees.”

About Joseph Kabila

Joseph Kabila Kabange (known commonly as Joseph Kabila, born 4 June 1971) is a Congolese politician who has been President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo since January 2001. He took office ten days after the assassination of his father, President Laurent-Désiré Kabila. He was elected as President in 2006. In 2011, he was re-elected for a second term.

Kabila’s term was due to expire on 20 December 2016 per the constitution, adopted in 2006. Officials suggested that elections would be held in November 2016. However, on 29 September 2016, the nation’s electoral authority announced that the election would not be held until early 2018. [Wikipedia]

Kabila blames election delays on budgetary constraints and the challenge of registering millions of voters.

Congo mines significant amounts of cobalt, gold, diamonds, copper and tin but remains one of Sub-Saharan Africa’s poorest countries.

EU sanctions

On Monday (May 29 2017), the European Union imposed sanctions on nine more Congo nationals over “obstruction of the electoral process and related human rights violations” in the central African state.

The nine include Congo’s current and former interior ministers, the government spokesman and officers of the security forces. They join another seven people already on the EU blacklist which subjects them to asset freezes and travel bans. [Many of them have relatives living in Belgium.]

The EU said Congo should hold an election as soon as possible, and expressed concern about excessive use of force by state authorities in managing the security crisis, as well as restrictions on media and bans on demonstrations. [Reuters]

US Sanctions

The Obama administration passed several waves of targeted sanctions on the country, and the Trump administration appears to be taking a tough stance as well.

Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, is calling for cuts to its peacekeeping budget due to Kabila’s actions.

“The U.N. peacekeeping mission is mandated to partner with the government. In other words, the U.N. is aiding a government that is inflicting predatory behavior against its own people. We should have the decency and common sense to end this.”

Haley’s speech, at the end of March, came the day after the U.N. confirmed that two U.N. peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo had been found dead in shallow graves. One was American, the other from Sweden.

The contract

Mer Security and Communication Systems will be advising Congo’s government on “political concerns regarding African security issues” and the policy issues surrounding “the appointment of a special envoy from the DRC to the United States,” according to disclosure forms signed by the firm’s chief executive, Omer Laviv, dated April 26.

The contract is with Raymond Tshibanda, the former minister of foreign affairs of Congo, and documents list him as the special envoy to the United States. During lobbying meetings set up by other firms, Mer will “provide briefings to meeting participants, based on its discussions with the DRC government,” the documents say. [The Hill]

The Mer Group & Athena GS3 Security

The Israeli group specializes in the installation of communications cables and in providing support for intelligence agencies.

The company runs Athena GS3 Security Implementations, a “private Intelligence” agency located in Cyprus.

Athena GS3 carries out interceptions of the cables the Mer group has installed.

Athena GS3 is headed by Shabtai Shavit, a former director of Mossad, and employs mostly former Israeli military types, particularly from the renowned Unit 8200.

Newcomer to US lobbying

A newcomer to lobbying in the United States, Mer has in fact farmed out the contract to a number of firms, particularly to the Israeli communications agency Gitam BBDO, the tiny Southfive Strategies firm run by Jason Epstein, a former legal expert for the international Jewish organization B’nai B’rith and Aselus Strategies. The latter, a brand new concern, is run by Adnan Jalil, who advised Donald Trump’s election campaign on congressional issues. But Mer Group also hired the consulting concern Alston & Bird, and particularly its senior lawyer, former U.S. presidential candidate Bob Dole. [Intelligence Online]

REFERENCES

Congo inks $5.6 million lobbying deal amid election strife — The Hill

Mer Group — Website

EU blacklists nine more Congolese over rights, elections — Reuters

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Israel’s Mer Group to represent Kabila’s interests in Washington