(JED/IFEX) – On Tuesday 27 June 2000, Caroline Pare was expelled from the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to the British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC) office in Kinshasa. Before leaving the Congo, she demanded and obtained the release of Pierre Mombele (the Reuters agency chauffeur who drove her on the day of her arrest) and an […]
(JED/IFEX) – On Tuesday 27 June 2000, Caroline Pare was expelled from the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to the British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC) office in Kinshasa.
Before leaving the Congo, she demanded and obtained the release of Pierre Mombele (the Reuters agency chauffeur who drove her on the day of her arrest) and an unidentified interpreter, colleagues who were detained with her. Pare, a BBC journalist and special correspondent, was arrested on Saturday 24 June at the home of Jonas Mukamba Kadiata Nzemba, a former director of the Bakwanga Mining Company (MIBA), in Kinshasa/ Ngaliema. She had gone there to meet with Mukamba, who was himself arrested on Friday 23 June and remains in detention at the military security branch offices (Détection militaire des activités anti-patrie, DEMIAP).
Pare was preparing a documentary about Patrice Emery Lumumba, the Congolese prime minister when the country gained its independence. Lumumba was killed in 1961. The BBC journalist was going to meet with Mukamba, one of the last witnesses to see Lumumba in his final days.
In another incident, Arnold Zaitmann, the BBC permanent Kinshasa correspondent, was arrested on Monday 26 June, in the early evening, in Kinshasa/Gombe. Police officers from the Urban Monitoring unit accused him of not stopping in the street to salute the flag. Zaitmann, who has only been in Kinshasa for about twelve days, was released a few hours later, but told to visit the police station the next day.
Finally, Jacques Bololo, distributor of the satirical newspaper “Pot Pourri”, has been held hostage for several days at State Security Council (Conseil de sûreté d’État, CSE, formerly CNS) offices in Kinshasa/Ngaliema. Bololo was told that he would only be released if he helped the CSE locate the newspaper’s managers, who have been in hiding.
