DRC GOV spokesman Lambert Mende: Full brunt of law for media outlets giving platform to terrorists Jean-Bosco Ntaganda and associates

In a news conference he held Friday, May 18, Media Minister and

Government Spokesman Lambert Mende came out swinging against media

outlets who'd be tempted to give a platform to "terrorists" Jean-Bosco

Ntaganda and his associates roaming the hills and the natural

preserves of the Kivus.





He warned that journos who'd dare to call and give interviews to

"those who kill Congolese, rape, and eviscerate pregnant women" will

feel the full brunt of the law of the land.





He bristled at the description by journalists of Ntaganda and his

followers as "insurgents" and "mutineers"--insisting renegade General

Ntaganda and officers around him are "terrorists" who've kidnapped

young men under their command and are now forcibly enlisting child

soldiers.





Pressed to explain why the government had previously shielded Ntaganda

against prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC), Mende

angrily retorted that "in politics, one plus one doesn't necessarily

equal two."





Mende pointed out that Ntaganda wasn't at first arrested because he's

a "criminal" who'd helped fending off a far worse menace represented

by Laurent Nkunda, another "criminal"! (A most bizarre rationale

indeed.)





Moreover Ntaganda brought to the fold of the Republic thousands of

young "compatriots," many of whom are hounding him today.





"Just imagine the threat [Ntaganda] would be representing today had he

still had under his command thousands of soldiers, instead of the few

hundreds he's got today," Mende argued.





Of the 350 soldiers Ntaganda had at the onset of his terrorist spree,

304 have rejoined the FARDC, Mende said. The military outlook of

Ntaganda is so bleak he's resorted to forcibly recruiting child

soldiers.





Adding:





"Ntaganda has now only less than 10% of the elements of his regiments

at his disposal. His clandestine weapon caches have been dismantled."





Asked to comment as to why the CNDP-- whose political leaders hold the

government responsible for the renewed spate of violence and who've

offered to be a "bridge" for talks between the government and the M-23

militia (an offer the government turned down)--still belongs to

Kabila's political alliance of the Presidential Majority, Mende said

that Speaker Aubin Minaku ought to draw the consequences of that

paradoxical situation.