(JED/IFEX) – On 12 November 2006, Basile Kokwalet and John Kintendu, Kinshasa correspondents and cameramen for Radio France’s overseas division, RFO, were attacked by guards of the minister of the interior and security, General Denis Kalume Numbi, as they attempted to interview a local pastor. The reporters told JED that they had gone to film […]
(JED/IFEX) – On 12 November 2006, Basile Kokwalet and John Kintendu, Kinshasa correspondents and cameramen for Radio France’s overseas division, RFO, were attacked by guards of the minister of the interior and security, General Denis Kalume Numbi, as they attempted to interview a local pastor.
The reporters told JED that they had gone to film the deployment of UN security forces (MONUC) at a cemetery in the city’s Gombe neighbourhood following deadly riots that shook the city the day before. They were covering the events from vice-president and presidential candidate Jean-Pierre Bemba’s house, which is situated about 10 metres across from the cemetery. After filming the deployment, they requested and received permission from the military unit posted to the cemetery to film gunfire damage sustained by the grounds. They then went to the residential area of the neighbourhood to film damage sustained there from a bomb that had been dropped the night before but had not exploded. The two reporters later went to interview Pastor Théodore Ngoyi, a member of Bemba’s inner circle, who recounted the damage caused to his church roof following heavy shelling. As they were interviewing Ngoyi, General Kalume’s men turned up and began threatening to kill the pastor. They then turned on the journalists, pointing their guns to the men’s foreheads and demanding that they hand over their equipment.
The journalists were taken to General Kalume’s office, where he eventually surrendered the equipment after MONUC forces intervened, but not before removing the tape with the recording.
