THE SITUATION FOR HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS (HRDs) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is still a major concern, as it has been for years. In 2010, the situation worsened with journalists and HRDs being arrested and assassinated, and amongst them were Floribert Chebeya Bahizire and Fidèle Bazana Edadi, the Executive Director and driver respectively of the NGO ‘The Voice of the Voiceless for Human Rights’ (VSV). Floribert was a friend to everyone and was my great friend in our struggle. In spite of numerous threats and intimidating incidents that we both encountered, we decided to stay in the country in order to work against injustice and to help the people to understand and to defend their fundamental human rights through non violent means. Floribert paid for this with his life. On the 1st of June 2010 he was invited by the head of the National Congolese Police, General John Numbi Ntambo, to his office. He was driven there by his driver Fidèle Bazana Edadi. In the early hours of the 2nd of June 2011 Floribert’s dead body was found abandoned in his car, his trousers pulled down to his knees and his genitalia exposed. His executioner had placed suspicious looking objects beside his body including condoms, viagra pills, nails and women’s artificial hair, in order to attempt to mislead others into believing that Floribert had died as part of a sexual escapade. As for his companion Fidèle, his body was never found.
Two suspects have been condemned to death for this affair, and they protest their innocence. Two others were acquitted and another two are on the run. Meanwhile, the head of the National Congolese Police is still suspended from his duties as a precautionary measure for over a year. It has clearly been demonstrated that Floribert and Fidèle were assassinated by the Congolese state, specifically the officers of the National Police, some of whose higher officials are in prison whilst others are on the run, while the main suspect walks free. Up to now the Congolese leaders do not appear to have ever shown any concern. They continue to thumb their nose at the HRDs and consider them to be the enemies of power, playing into the hands of the West and of political opponents. The stigmatisation of HRDs by the country’s authorities continues to alarm defenders and continues to represent a danger to them. In spite of this, we did in fact recently welcome the work of the Minister of Justice and Human Rights, who presented to Parliament “The Bill for the Protection of the Defenders of Human Rights and the Witnesses for the Denunciations of Acts of Corruption”. This Bill is supported by NGOs for the defence of human rights and was taken to Parliament and discussed there, although the Parliament is going to stop meeting in a few weeks so that the Members of Parliament can run their electoral campaigns.
I, the person speaking to you now, am considered a traitor by some Baluba-Kat tribe in the security services who do not understand why I criticise the wrongdoings of those in power rather than checking with them first, given that I am from the same tribe as the Head of State. I have been arbitrarily stopped on many occasions, and I have been put in prison twice and always freed on a provisional basis without any caution. I have been approached with a view to getting me to stop my work with HRDs and to start working with those in power. Given that Imix with people who resist, who dare to speak out against injustices, a campaign is being mounted to destabilise me, to trap me or to outright have me disappeared. I am already on file as a “person of interest” and I will end up being “a target” like Flroibert if I am not careful. All this time, I am being permanently shadowed, my telephone is being tapped by secret services and my family has been threatened many times. These people carrying out this dirty work are known but are never given any hassle. My life may well be in danger, but I cannot allow members of my family to also be endangered. This is why I am asking those who want good to be done to help me, by any means possible, to move my family out for a while as we wait for the situation to sort itself out in the country. I have remained on the front line and I will stay here until democracy and human rights have triumphed in my country. This does not mean that I want to martyr myself – far from it. By way of an ending, I would like to ask the entire community here at this 6th Dublin Platform, as well as anyone who wants to see good being done that is not here right now, to listen carefully to the HRDs in the DRC, as “the danger is not yet over.”
I have been arbitrarily stopped on many occasions, and I have been put in prison twice and always freed on a provisional basis without any caution. I have been approached with a view to getting me to stop my work with HRDs and to start working with those in power.
