(JED/IFEX) – Guy Kasongo Kilembwe, editor-in-chief of the Kinshasa-based satirical newspaper “Pot-Pourri”, Vicky Bolingola, “Pot-Pourri” newsroom secretary, and Freddy Embumba, one of thirteen dissident journalists from another Kinshasa-based daily, “L’Avenir”, were arrested on Monday 31 December 2001, between noon and 7:00 p.m. (local time), by individuals identified by witnesses as Congolese National Police (Police nationale […]
(JED/IFEX) – Guy Kasongo Kilembwe, editor-in-chief of the Kinshasa-based satirical newspaper “Pot-Pourri”, Vicky Bolingola, “Pot-Pourri” newsroom secretary, and Freddy Embumba, one of thirteen dissident journalists from another Kinshasa-based daily, “L’Avenir”, were arrested on Monday 31 December 2001, between noon and 7:00 p.m. (local time), by individuals identified by witnesses as Congolese National Police (Police nationale congolaise, PNC) Special Services agents.
As of the early afternoon of Tuesday 1 January 2002, JED did not have any information on Kasongo’s and Bolingola’s place of detention. JED tried to locate the journalists in the PNC’s and the National Intelligence Agency’s (Agence nationale des renseignements, ANR) main detention facilities in Kinshasa without success. The police officers who arrested the two “Pot-Pourri” journalists were said to be looking for Achille Ekele Ngolyma, the satirical newspaper’s publication director. Not having found him at the newspaper’s Kinshasa/Gombe editorial offices, they arrested Bolingola instead, and picked up Kasongo later that same evening in Kinshasa/Bandalungwa.
The motive for the two arrests is unknown at present. The Monday 31 December edition (no. 104) of “Pot-Pourri” included the following headline: “Because of the current leaders’ incapability and incompetence…hunger continues in 2002”. In the article, the newspaper stated that, “Despite the press releases inviting state agents to go to bank counters to collect their ‘alms’ [salaries], the holiday season is marked by serious depression. The nativity offered signs of this. And New Year’s 2002 is being spent in a mood of reflection. All the while, Kabila II, the operetta general-major, who was parachuted in as head of state, promises to orchestrate miracles in Katanga, just as Kabila I did.”
As for Embumba, one of 13 journalists and employees of “L’Avenir” who resigned in a protest move about 10 days ago, he was arrested by a (not otherwise identified) PNC Special Services commander named Luc following the lodging of a complaint by his former employer. The journalist is being held in a cell at the Kabila (formerly Mobutu) Military Camp in Kinshasa / Lemba, where JED was able to meet with him on the morning of Tuesday 1 January. Embumba stated that he was asked and gave a statement about cellular phones and service cards that the rebel employees allegedly took with them when they left the newspaper. His interrogator also wanted to know why he and the twelve others had resigned from “L’Avenir” and who had organised the protest action. These grievances were also reported to JED by Joseph Mutambule, associate director-general of the “L’Avenir” group.