Former Kabila's sposkeman Kudura Kasongo: Deputy Premier Adolphe Lumanu "has ordered security services to bump me off"

In a telephone interview with Radio Top-Congo, Kudura Kasongo, erstwhile Kabila's spokesman and currently one of presidential candidate Vital Kamerhe's spokespeople, claimed today that Deputy Premier Adolphe Lumanu "has ordered security forces to bump me off." Contacted by phone by Radio Top-Congo, Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister in charge of security Lumanu said he was being driven from N'Djili Airport where he'd just landed after a trip with the president to Kananga for the ground breaking ceremony of the Katende dam, he was therefore not appraised of the eviction incident, and surmised that Kudura might be "off his rocker."

This trading of outlandish accusations and insults on Radio Top-Congo came on the heels of the eviction yesterday morning of the TV station Congo Média Channel (CMC), owned by Kudura Kasongo and his wife MP Jeannine Kudura, for a one-month rent arrear. According to MP Jeannine Kudura, who went to vent her rage yesterday evening in a show of the anti-Kabila RLTV, the eviction was highly unusual and outright illegal as 33 cops were sent in to carry out the eviction order just days after CMC missed rent payment and without the proper 6-month notice allowed to tenants in similar predicament. She said that those police officers roughed her up on the scene of the eviction. The cops also damaged expensive equopment during the eviction.

She went on to say that her family and CMC TV channel have been harrassed ever since her husband has turned into a  thorn in the sides of Kabila and his allies. (Kudura Kasongo has for instance recently blasted Kabila's press briefing as wanting in terms of form--both domestic and external security heads were present as well as two hosts of entertainment TV, an alleged breach of protocol format, according to Kudura--and substance: when Kabila mistakenly told the national audience for example that the magistrates' salary was $1,650 whereas it was actually $400, it showed that the president has either taken leave of his senses or was "disconnected from reality.")

MP Jeannine Kudura listed a string of incidents that proved that CMC is a target of pro-Kabila political forces:

1) in December of last year, the signal of her TV channel CMC was briefly cut off without explanation. And when she called the wife of Communication Minister Lambert Mende to get an explanation about it, Minister Mende himself allegedly told her he'd been ordered to cut off CMC's signal by Kabila in a phone call the president had made to the Minister at 2am--the president was allegedly furious over a political show called "Tout le monde en parle"  (Everyone is talking about it) in which Kudura Kasongo regularly appeared as a political pundit and in which his ex spokesman regularly "insulted" him (MP Jeannine Kudura claimed to have subsequently ordered the cancelation of the show "Tout le monde en parle" on the advice of Communication Minister Mende);

2) Shortly thereafter, a cop CMC had hired to guard its installations was badly beaten at night by unknown intruders who'd warned their victim they'd be coming back;

3) Small businesses, staffed by security personnel, suddenly sprang up in the vicinity of her TV station for obvious surveillance purposes;

and, last not least, 4) Her own son, 21-year-old Kudura Kasongo Jr., was arrested in front of the TV station and spent a night in jail because the channel had run an ad that had the sound track of a censored song! (A false claim, she asserted, as the musician who wrote the song told her the song had never been censored.)

Kudura Kasongo Jr. being an analyst and commentator of international news, MP Jeannine Kudura failed to see the connection between her son and the production department responsible for the ad spots at CMC TV.

Raising her tone to hysterical fever pitch, MP Jeannine Kasongo accused Justice Minister Luzolo Bambi and Deputy Premier Lumanu of having hatched a cabal to bring down her husband. "If they want his downfall," she angrily asked, "why go after my son? Why go after a private enterprise? Why this fear of political debate in this country?"

MP Jeannine Kudura vowed to mobilize women to hold demos to denounce political intolerance and the muzzling of the press.

Earlier yesterday, presidential candidate Vital Kamerhe appeared on the scene of the eviction and denounced the desperate actions of a regime in dire straits.

In today's phone interview, Kudura Kasongo revealed that his family's TV station was a gift given to him by Kabila who now wants to destroy it because he has joined Kamerhe in the opposition. He also said that his TV station's equipment suppliers have just called in his debts and are threatening to repossess all the equipment loaned to him. This means that CMC will be off-air for quite a long time.

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In an unrelated development, CENI appears to have reached an understanding with UDPS and its allies over the thorny issue of the audit of the central server. It was reported on Saturday that UDPS would be signing CENI's Code of Good Conduct. But on Monday, UDPS secretary general Jacquemain Shabani released a statement stating that as long as 15 of his party members arrested at a demo last week wouldn't be released signing the Code would be out of question!