Thread by @NewsHawksLive

#VolatileDRCBattle
The explosive arrest on 17 March 2021 of President Emmerson Mnangagwa's business associate Belarusian tycoon Alexander Zingman after meeting ex-president Joseph Kabila involves "a deadly cocktail of mining deals and politics" in DRC, a security source said.

DRC President Felix Tshisekedi and Kabika have had a serious fallout after the collapse of the coalition between Heading for Change and the Common Front for Congo since 2018 when the incumbent won disputed elections.
Tshisekedi is now purging Kabila allies.

Tshisekedi has in recent months been purging Kabila's political allies – including Prime minister Sylvestre Ilunga Ilunkumba - removed through a vote-of-no-confidence, leading to a collapse of the power-sharing arrangement between them.

In a bid to side-line Kabila, the DRC Parliament supported Christophe Mboso, the National Assembly's oldest member at 79, who had defected from the former president's Common Front for Congo party in December to rally behind Tshisekedi.

This followed the ousting of former speaker Jeanine Mabunda, another Kabila ally, recently and the resignation of Ilunkamba. 
Kabila's other ally Alexis Thambwe Mwamba was also removed as Senate leader.

This then gave Tshisekedi control of the House of Assembly and Senate, leaving Kabila angry and sulking.

Residing since late December at his farm in Kashamata, Kabila is said to have been refining his strategy to counter Tshisekedi’s manoeuvres to consolidate control and push him out.
From Lubumbashi, in Haut-Katanga, Kabila has conducted a series of consultations on the fight back.

Kabila has written to the African Union and United Nations, and has dispatched envoys to South Africa, Egypt and Kenya, among other countries.
That is why he met Mnangagwa in Harare. Zingman is Mnangagwa and Kabila's business ally.
So Kabila wants their help to fight Tshisekedi.

Mnangagwa is part of the Sadc troika on politics, defence and security, together with Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi is the Sadc chair.
"The issue is about politics and deals," the source said.

Mnangagwa and Kabila dealt with each other closely in various deals, some officially recorded through Zimbabwe's moribund Osleg military company, which involved diamonds during the DRC between 1998 and 2002.
Mnangagwa was the late former president Robert Mugabe’s DRC point man.