(JED/IFEX) – On 2 May 2003, Congolese Rally for Democracy (Rassemblement congolais pour la démocratie, RCD/Goma, a rebel group) soldiers detained and brutally assaulted Dieudonné Muzaliwa Bulambo. The journalist works for the state broadcaster Radiotélévision nationale congolaise’s (RTNC) Kindu station, in Maniema province. The RCD/Goma controls the eastern half of the Democratic Republic of Congo […]
(JED/IFEX) – On 2 May 2003, Congolese Rally for Democracy (Rassemblement congolais pour la démocratie, RCD/Goma, a rebel group) soldiers detained and brutally assaulted Dieudonné Muzaliwa Bulambo. The journalist works for the state broadcaster Radiotélévision nationale congolaise’s (RTNC) Kindu station, in Maniema province. The RCD/Goma controls the eastern half of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Bulambo was left for dead after the attack. He was later taken to a local hospital, where he remains in critical condition.
According to information received by JED, the RCD/Goma was angered when Bulambo raised the issue of Rwandan troops’ presence in Maniema province during an on-air interview he conducted with a United Nations observer mission (Monuc) spokesperson in Kindu.
RTNC provincial officials subsequently fired the journalist, though he is still recovering in hospital.
JED recalls that despite the signing of a new constitution by all warring parties in the DRC, Radio Maendeleo, a Bukavu-based community radio station, in South Kivu province, remains closed since December 2002 (see IFEX alerts of 13 and 9 December 2002). The RCD/Goma controls the area and refuses to allow the station to resume its broadcasts.
