Kisangani | Monday
MEDIA watchdog Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontieres, RSF) on Sunday called on rebel leaders in the Democratic Republic of Congo to release an imprisoned journalist and begin respecting freedom of the press.
RSF wrote Azarias Ruberwa, secretary general of the Rwandan-backed Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), asking him ”to liberate this journalist so that freedom of the press can be respected in the zones controlled by the rebel movements.”
Kisanga Yenge, a correspondent in the northeastern city of Kisangani for the weekly Les Coulisses, was arrested there on October 30 by RCD forces.
RSF said he was captured after the publication of an article in which he accused RCD officials of being involved in corruption within the textile industry. They say he is being held in Kisangani, but has not been allowed visitors.
”Several journalists have already been arrested by RCD agents and the conditions for journalists to do their work in the east of Congo are particularly difficult,” the group warned.
The east of the war-ravaged Democratic Republic of Congo is controlled mainly by rebel groups, backed by Rwanda and Uganda.
Meanwhile, peace talks to end the years-long ethnic conflict in the country are ongoing and are likely to resume in South Africa between January 15-20, one of the UN mediators for the DRC said on Sunday.
Moustaphe Niasse said the exact date still has to be confirmed. At the moment there is a fragile ceasefire in the war which has on the one side the DRC government and its allies Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe, and on the other side rebel forces and Rwanda and Uganda.
Niasse told a news conference in Dakar, the Senegalese capital that the first round of talks in mid-October in Addis Ababa, ”did not advance matters much.”
Much still needed to be sorted out before the next meeting, he said, including the make up of the delegations.
Over 400 political parties, 100 church and civic organisations and numerous armed groups will have to be included.
Financing will also have be arranged, although it is likely that if the meeting is held in South Africa, the South African government will foot the bill.
Only 80 of the 330 delegates expected to attend the first round of talks, which opened on October 15 in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, showed up, and the DRC government delegation left earlier than expected.
The talks are seen as a key aspect of the peace process under an accord reached in 1999 in the Zambian capital Lusaka to end the war ravaging the vast central African nation. – Sapa-AFP