Kinshasa Update: 1) House Arrest of Gen Jean de Dieu Oleko: A canard or a persistent rumor?; and 2) Opposition creates Shadow Cabinet

1) House Arrest of Gen Jean de Dieu Oleko: A Canard or a persistent rumor?

Gen Jean de Dieu Oleko

Contrary to what I previously stated here, relaying what the Congolese press had announced this past weekend—L’Avenir and Le Soft being among the culprits—Gen Jean de Dieu Oleko was AT NO TIME under house arrest.

The maddening thing about this rampant reporting malpractice that bears all the features of the Congolese grapevine of Radio-Trottoir [Sidewalk Radio] is that whenever the canard is contradicted by facts, the media culprit just picks things up where it left without ever thinking of apologizing to readers or viewers for the false reporting.

This is the case of L’Avenir, which reports this Monday June 14 that Gen Oleko appeared on Sunday at the police barracks of Camp Lufungula in the Commune of Lingwala to launch a “fortnight of [police] road courtesy” and to announce the intensification of police patrols before the Cinquantenaire. The same news is also relayed by Radio Okapi, the only reliable source of information in the DRC.

To its credit, however, L’Avenir now talks of “rumors” that maintain that “henceforth the general has to appear each Friday at the Auditorat Militaire [JAG corps of DRC] and, as a result, forbidden to leave the city-province of Kinshasa.” On his part, Ben-Clet of Le Potentiel is far more self-assured: “the general [Oleko] was briefly held and questioned by security services.”

2) Opposition MP Clément Kanku announces the creation of a Shadow Cabinet:

MP Clément Kanku 

Coordinator of opposition platform "Union pour la Nation" (UN)

(Credits)

Radio Okapi reports that opposition MP Clément Kanku, coordinator of the UN or “Union pour la Nation” [Union for the Nation] (an opposition platform to which belongs the MLC), announced Saturday, June 12, the creation of a Shadow Cabinet (“gouvernement fantôme” in French). Radio Okapi doesn’t give, however, the composition of the shadow cabinet.

Radio Okapi quotes Clément Kanku as stating:

“We will criticize [the government] and we’ll tell the population what we would have done, if we were in power.”

My guess is that this new opposition gimmick is just what it appears to be: a gimmick! The opposition is torn by contradictions, rivalries, and corruption. For instance, though dominated by the “Union pour la Nation”, Kinshasa provincial assembly elected as governor André Kimbuta of Kabila’s party. The opposition provincial MPs are alleged to have been bribed by the ruling presidential majority alliance (AMP).

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Flori Chebeya Murder Investigation: 1) Autopsy by Dutch medical examiners; and 2) Kinshasa Police Chief Gen Jean de Dieu Oleko under house arrest

1) Autopsy by Dutch and Congolese medical examiners:

Dutch and Congolese medical examiners

(Credits)

The autopsy on the body of Flori Chebeya was conducted on Friday, June 11, at Kinshasa Mama Yemo Hospital by Dutch medical examiner Frank van de Goot, who was assisted by two other members of his team: another medical examiner and a forensic photographer. Dr Tshomba Honda, a Congolese medical examiner, participated in the autopsy.

Though the preliminary results of the autopsy are “inconclusive,” the hypothesis of murder has already been retained by Attorney General Flory Kabange Numbi.

As the medical examiners were leaving for the Netherlands, the Dutch embassy in Kinshasa released a statement that read in part:

“No cause of death has yet been established for certain…Nothing excludes the use of violence… "[The] autopsy does not indicate up to now any sign of excessive force…. Additional, more extensive examinations will be conducted at several [forensic] institutes in the Netherlands.”

In the meantime, DRC Minister of Justice, Professor Emmanuel Luzolo Bambi Lessa, had a meeting with Congolese human rights groups on the sensitive issue of the funerals on Independence Day. As he couldn’t convince the angry activists to set the funerals for another date, he urged them not to be unruly on June 30.

After the meeting with the Justice Minister, Marie-André Kayembe, the spokesman of the rights groups, said:

“We consider that June 30 is a sacred day for our country. Chebeya is a martyr of our country; for us, this will be a way of paying tribute to him.”

For Kayembe, the investigation would only lead to one conclusion:

“We are convinced and sure that the enquiry will lead to this: Floribert Chebeya was tortured on police premises and he died of it.”

2) Kinshasa Police Chief Gen Jean de Dieu Oleko under house arrest :

Gen Jean de Dieu Oleko

(Credits)

The position of Gen Jean de Dieu Oleko had become untenable of late—especially after making radio and televised statements claiming that the police had “found […] the corpse of a man without any visible sign of violence, whose pants fly zipper was open and beside whom were two condoms already used and one unused tree-condom pack; a box of the [Indian-made erectile] stimulant Davigra containing a bubble pack of two tablets already used; two artificial nails and a few women’s artificial hair extensions.”

For uttering such blatantly false statement, Gen Jean de Dieu Oleko was put under house arrest on Friday, June 11, by the special investigative unit of the National Security Council which is in the purview of President Kabila.

According to Le Soft, a newspaper close to the ruling presidential majority:

“While one can’t accuse [Gen Oleko] of killing the rights activist Floribert Chebeya Mahizire, the chief of police of the capital is henceforth in this case the number one suspect. For attempting to mislead the public, for whatever reasons best known to himself.”

Other senior intelligence police officers were also arrested Friday, including Major Georges Kitulwa Amisi.

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Hell’s System in Flux: General John Numbi finally arrested and Presidential Guard on Red Alert

General Jean de Dieu Oleko

Kinshasa Police commissioner 

"The body of Chebeya bore no visible sign of violence"

(Credits)

The stream of narratives of the grisly murder of Floribert “Flori” Chebeya Bahizire I’m reading calls to mind the epigraph of Jason Stearns’s blog Congo Siasa; epigraph taken from the lyrics of a song by Koffi Olomide that purports to describe the DRC: “This is hell's system. The fire is raging but we don't get burned.”

Talking of Stearns, I also recall his hypothesis, clearly proven beyond any doubt in the ongoing tragedy, of the “Logic of Disorder in Kinshasa”:

“Despite Kabila’s rhetoric, his preferred modus operandi is to operate outside the strictures of the Constitution. For instance: it’s not the Minister of Defense who primarily deals with the Armed Forces, it’s someone else in Kabila’s own personal military cabinet who deals with them; it’s not the Minister of Interior who deals with issues regarding the police and internal law and order, it’s someone in the inner circle of Kabila. He thus maintains a ‘strong parallel chain of command.’”

Well, it seems that the concentric circles of power around the Raïs have been colliding these past few days and hours—and the jangle of the collision is deafening.

Item: the latest RFI update:

“[A]ccording to a source close to the investigation, [General John Numbi] might have been finally arrested. He is suspected of being involved in the assassination of Floribert Chebeya. One of his men, [the head of the police intelligence unit DRGSS] Colonel Daniel Mukalay, might have directly implicated him. According to a person familiar with the case, the colonel has confessed to the assassination of Floribert Chebeya, without the intent of killing him.

[…]

He might have said to have acted on the order of General Numbi. Now, according to one source, John Numbi feared being accused in an investigation of the president [Chebeya] of the [human rights group] Voix des Sans-Voix [Voice of the Voiceless].

Several other officers of the [DRGSS] were arrested alongside Colonel Mukalay. Among them was also a major of the Presidential Guard. The Presidential Guard was placed on red alert today.”

Then again, while the celerity of the murder investigation is to be commended, we once more come full circle to Jason Stearns’s damning hypothesis: what’s this “strong parallel chain of command” under which this swift investigation is being carried out?

While it’s a relief that Numbi has been finally arrested, what about Kinshasa police commissioner, General Jean de Dieu Oleko, who uttered dreadful misleading statements in the wake of the discovery of the body?

General Jean de Dieu Oleko claimed “on several radio stations of the capital that [Chebeya] was a friend of the police whose ‘pertinent advice was very solicited and listened to.” Adding: “We often solicit him to listen to him give us lots of advice.”

General Jean de Dieu Oleko also issued a statement claiming that police officers who went on the scene of the murder “found […] the corpse of a man without any visible sign of violence, whose pants fly zipper was open and beside whom were two condoms already used and one unused tree-condom pack; a box of the [Indian-made erectile] stimulant Davigra containing a bubble pack of two tablets already used; two artificial nails and a few women’s artificial hair extensions.”

Did this man actually see the body of the deceased?

Those who were allowed a glance at the deceased at the morgue of Mama Yemo Hospital saw “visible signs of violence” on his body:

“Collaborators of Floribert Chebeya, as well as one UN official, who were able to see his remains at the morgue […] noticed that his face was swollen. On the other hand, they weren’t allowed to lift the shroud covering the remainder of the body.”

And this scatterbrain of a general would be allowed to continue making the rounds of radio and TV stations to mock the deceased and the whole Congolese nation?

If the Raïs wants to be serious about the murder investigation, General Jean de Dieu Oleko has, at best, to resign, or, at worst, to be arrested! And what’s this joke reported by some newswires of General John Numbi being placed under house arrest?

What’s even more terrible is that the Congolese government now seems to resist the idea floated by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon of an independent international probe of the murder!

Hell’s system indeed…

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