Death of the Italian ambassador in the DRC: a political assassination?

The Italian ambassador to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Luca Attanasio, was killed this Monday morning in North Kivu, in the east of the country. According to our information, it would be a revenge of the remnants of the movement of March 23 (M23).

At the start of his diplomatic career, when he worked as a consul in Morocco, in Casablanca, Luca Attanasio befriended the representatives of the Trevi group. The company Trevi Fondazioni was then negotiating a cooperation agreement with Morocco for infrastructure contracts around Casablanca. Luca Attanasio had facilitated the transaction. Since then, the diplomat has seen his career take off. In just four years, he went from being vice-ambassador to Nigeria to being Italian ambassador to the DRC. Wherever Luca Attanasio was located, branches of Trevi were set up.

In 2012, on the Democratic Republic of Congo side, one of the leaders of the M23 militia, Sultani Makenga, signed an agreement with the government to withdraw from Goma, the region where Attanasio was killed. Following what some within M23 considered to be a betrayal of Makenga, the militia split into three parts, with the most fundamentalist faction lining up behind evangelist bishop Jean-Marie Runiga Lugerero.

At that time, the agreement signed between the M23 and the government of the DRC implied that the exploitation of the coltan and wolframite mines would be the exclusive property of the families of the members of the M23. This was indeed the case between 2013, when Runiga had laid down his arms, and 2017, when Attanasio became head of mission in Kinshasa, two years before becoming ambassador.

As in other countries before, upon his arrival in the DRC, Attanasio brought back with him his friends from the Trevi conglomerate, who obtained a minor maintenance contract at the port of Matadi, in Kinshasa. This contract allowed them, among other things, to import and export goods.

In 2018, Luca Attanasio reached an informal agreement with M23 remnants who controlled the mines in North Kivu, to buy them coltan and wolframite for a share of the profits. But Attanasio did not keep his word. With his share of the profits, he bought influence from the Cinque Stelle (M5S) movement, the party of 2019 Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio. Which earned him a promotion. It was during this time that Attanasio became the Italian Ambassador to the DRC.

A settlement of accounts

Jean-Marie Runiga, who has since entered politics, joined the party of President Félix Tshisekedi, the ASP. On the morning of Monday February 22, Ambassador Attanasio was crossing Goma, North Kivu, in the company of a World Food Program convoy. The convoy was ambushed by armed men. A bloody confrontation: the ambassador, as well as an Italian gendarme who accompanied him and his driver, are dead.

According to our sources in the region, this assassination is part of the settling of scores between the Italian ambassador and his former partners in the region. UA contract would have been placed on the head of the Italian by the advice of ex-M23.

The role of Runiga in this affair remains to be determined today. Although the M23 has remained active in recent years, it has never committed an act of this magnitude. Especially since dozens of peacekeepers are deployed in the area and many convoys regularly cross the region. That of the Italian diplomat would therefore have been knowingly targeted.