In the spotlight: after 20 years in prison

Audio 02:59

Prisoners pardoned at Makala prison in Kinshasa, DRC, on January 8, 2021, during the ceremony where more than twenty people sentenced to death for the assassination of former DRC president Laurent Kabila, received a pardon of President Félix Tshisekedi.

© AFP / Arsène Mpiana

By: Kamanda Wa Kamanda

7 min

Publicity

They spent nearly twenty years in prison, convicted in an unfinished trial for the assassination of Laurent-Désiré Kabila ... Eddy Kapend, Leta Mangasa, Nono Lutula and about twenty other survivors leave Makala prison.

Many newspapers announce this news.

For the daily

Le Phare

"

This release follows the presidential pardon granted by the Head of State Félix-Antoine Tshisekedi

".

A precision in the bi-weekly

Le Maximum

 : " 

The President of the Republic used his discretionary power to grant pardon to certain prisoners ...

" And

Le Maximum

continued that: " 

The presidential orders issued for this purpose refer to the text of the Congolese constitution and were justified by the need to promote in the country a climate of humanity, forgiveness and justice ...

"

Soon the hunt for criminals

The Republic

is interested in the arrest in France of former rebel leader Roger Lumbala suspected, according to the Mapping Report of the United Nations group of experts, of crimes against humanity in certain territories of the Democratic Congo.

“ 

Apprehended in Paris at the end of December and remanded in custody on January 2 at the end of his custody

, report colleagues from the newspaper

La République

,

the former warlord risks being transferred to The Hague.

"And to specify:" 

The facts alleged against Roger Lumbala date back to the second Congo war, that is to say from 1998 to 2003, and took place between 2001 and 2003.

The same daily affirms that " 

Roger Lumbala is at the time in head of the Rassemblement congolais pour la Démocratie nationale, a rebel group backed by Uganda.

"

For its part,

La Prospérité

, another daily, talking about electoral reforms in the DRC, headlines: "

CENI: necessary safeguards against the impossible depoliticization

!"

Referring to a contribution from the Study Group on Congo, the newspaper affirms that: "

Electoral reform remains a permanent debate in the DRC

".

Since 2006

, we can read in the columns of

La Prospérité

,

electoral cycle after electoral cycle, the various ballots organized have not made it possible to put an end to the recurring crisis of legitimacy.

However, what was the commitment of political and social actors in Sun City at the beginning of the 2000s

, recalls

La Prospérité,

almost 20 years later, the country is still in search of mechanisms to guarantee credible elections.

Some voices, especially within civil society organizations

,

even call for a total depoliticization of the CENI to set up an exclusively citizen electoral management body.

"

Finally, the

Forum des As

newspaper is

worried about the size of the budget for the extraordinary session of the National Assembly.

“ 

$ 12 million: public outcry!

"The daily ecstasies quoting the rapporteur of the Age Bureau who reveals that the monthly endowment of the lower house has been raised to this height since December.

"

 It is true that in terms of sales

,

everything is relative,

emphasizes columnist

Forum des As,

m

ais in the DR Congolese context where social emergencies constantly stare ... without solution, US $ 12 million a parliamentary activity to last less than a month, that has something to shock the conscience.

No irregularly underpaid public official applauds the idea of ​​learning of the disbursement of 12 million for such a short period in favor of professionals of

"who are for", "who are against"

and

"who are 'abstain? "

"Conclusion," 

Constrained for ages to physical distancing with the greenback, the average Congolese loses his Lingala, his Swahili, his Tshiluba or even his Kikongo.

"

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