Kabila & the Congo

[kk67]

Didn't quite understand that comment, sorry.
.'

This thread has made me want to pay my sub's,...

[rowan]

Kabila still refusing to go, apparently. Interesting interview with Friends of the Congo CEO Maurice Carney here: http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/01/20/ ... no-relief/

[rowan]

Repose en paix, Etienne Tshisekedi

[rowan]

NY Times:

The video opens with a squad of soldiers walking down a sandy, sunlit road toward a group of people who are chanting.

Then the soldiers — who appear to be uniformed members of the national army of the Democratic Republic of Congo, accompanied by a heavy military truck — raise their weapons.

They start firing.

One by one, the figures in the road drop. Oddly, several of the people do not make any attempt to run from the advancing soldiers.

The soldiers then saunter up to the wounded, blasting them in the head with assault rifles from a few feet away. Many of the victims look young; several are women.

Continue reading the main story
None carry guns.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/17/worl ... .html?_r=0

https://nyti.ms/2lwE81u

[rowan]

No let up in the violence in Congo. What's it going to take to get Kabila to step down?

Militia fighters decapitated about 40 police officers after an ambush in central Democratic Republic of Congo, local officials said on Saturday, the deadliest attack on security forces since an insurgency erupted in the region last year.

The Kamuina Nsapu militants struck on Friday as the police convoy drove from the city of Tshikapa in Kasai province to Kananga, the capital of Kasai-Central province, said Francois Madila Kalamba, speaker of the Kasai provincial assembly.

"They were apprehended by the militia members and they decapitated about 40," Kalamba told Reuters. He added that witnesses said the fighters spared the lives of six police officers because they spoke the local Tshiluba language.

The militia fighters, who are often armed with machetes but rarely carry firearms, made off with arms and vehicles during the raid, Kalamba added.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-congo ... SKBN16W0HN

[rowan]

Now this . . .

BENI, Congo (AP) — The bodies of an American and a Swedish investigator with the United Nations and their Congolese interpreter were found in Central Kasai province, authorities said Tuesday, more than two weeks after they disappeared while looking into recent violence there.

"After tests ... it is possible to identify the bodies as the two U.N. experts and their interpreter as being found near the Moyo river," Congo government spokesman Lambert Mende said. Investigations will continue to seek other missing Congolese colleagues, he said.

Michael Sharp of the United States and Zaida Catalan of Sweden, along with interpreter Betu Tshintela, driver Isaac Kabuayi and two motorbike drivers, went missing March 12 while looking into large-scale violence and alleged human rights violations by the Congolese army and local militia groups.

Congo's police inspector general, Charles Bisengimana, said the bodies were found Monday between the cities of Tshimbulu and Kananga, the provincial capital.

The confirmation came a day after Sharp's father, John Sharp of Hesston, Kansas, wrote on his Facebook page that the bodies of two Caucasians had been found in shallow graves in the search area, saying there was a high probability the dead were his son and his son's colleague.

http://www.dailyastorian.com/bodies-of- ... 90df66a1ab