(JED/IFEX) – Rose Lukanu Tshakwiza, a journalist with Congolese National Radiotelevision’s (Radiotélévision nationale congolaise, RTNC) Lubumbashi station and a local Radio France International (RFI) correspondent, has been receiving death threats since 25 May 2004. The threats were reportedly received from anonymous phone callers claiming to be members of the youth branch of the Union of […]
(JED/IFEX) – Rose Lukanu Tshakwiza, a journalist with Congolese National Radiotelevision’s (Radiotélévision nationale congolaise, RTNC) Lubumbashi station and a local Radio France International (RFI) correspondent, has been receiving death threats since 25 May 2004. The threats were reportedly received from anonymous phone callers claiming to be members of the youth branch of the Union of Congolese Federalists (Union des fédéralistes congolais, UNAFEC), a party whose national president is also justice minister. Gabriel Kyungu wa Kumwanza, a parliamentarian and former governor of Katanga province during the ethnic purges of 1992, is the party’s local leader.
According to information received by JED, UNAFEC militants, including Kumwanza’s advisor Dieudonné Bamoina and the advisor to the justice minister, known only as “Sakatelo”, accuse Tshakwiza of failing to mention, during the 24 May broadcast of her show “Guest of the Week” (“L’Invité de la semaine”), the deaths resulting from a heavy-handed police break-up of a 19 May UNAFEC march of nude women in Lubumbashi. The marchers were protesting the passing-over of their own local leader, Kumwanza, in the appointment of a new governor to Katanga province. Tshakwiza claims, however, that there were no deaths at the march and that there is consensus around the fact, adding, “I should not have to hide the truth to please anyone.”
In a related case, Pierrot Senga, a journalist at the same local RTNC station and a Lubumbashi correspondent for the Kinshasa-based newspaper “Le Révélateur”, has also received death threats. During the week of 21 May, the paper ran a story on the uproar created in Lubumbashi by Kumwanza when he was passed over for the provincial governor’s appointment. Kumwanza has alleged wrongdoing in the affair.
