UN
United Nations Peacekeeping
9 Mar
2009
DRC Press Review - 7/6/2005
Today's newspaper headlines are devoted to the announced start of voter identification and registration operations and to the insecurity across the country.
In LA REFERENCE PLUS, a story on the electoral process announces that 'voter registration is to start on June 30' and that 'the operation will begin first in the capital Kinshasa and the Oriental and Bas Congo provinces.' Looking at preparations, the paper notes that ' the first batch of 2,000 electoral kits out of the 10,000 ordered are expected in Kinshasa on June 16.' This, according to LE POTENTIEL, was announced on Saturday, June 4, to candidates for 'the test to be recruited as voter-registration supervisors and agents for Kinshasa.' There will be a total of '6,000 registration agents for Kinshasa while the first group to be trained will be composed of 900 persons.'
While announcing that 'the results of the recruitment test for electoral registration supervisors and agents will be published on June 30 for Kinshasa,' L'OBSERVATEUR notes that 'for neutrality reasons, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has trusted the general Inspection of Elementary and Secondary Education (EPSP) with the organisation of that test', since EPSP is experienced in handling hundreds of thousands test copies in the context of national examination for secondary school graduates. 'The General Inspection's role is to ensure that examination copies are corrected and the results published,' the paper quotes the EPSP chief inspector as saying.
LE POTENTIEL mentions the conference of provincial governors that is taking place at the ministry of Interior to discuss 'territorial security in anticipation of pre-electoral operations.'
In a piece titled 'Members of Parliaments on tight scheduled', LA TEMPETE DES TROPIQUES reports that the MPs want to work hard so as to take their parliamentary holiday before the end of June.' According to the paper, it is envisaged that the MPs 'anticipatively receive their wages' and that 'the vehicles ordered be delivered on June 30 at the latest.' There is no doubt that 'the MPs are trembling at the prospect of June 30,' LA TEMPETE DES TROPIQUES concludes.
'The components, a catastrophe.' Under this headline, L'AVENIR criticises the components and entities in the government for 'dragging their feet' after President Joseph Kabila, in his June 4 letter, requested that each submit their assessment of the transition process. Further denouncing what it describes as ' the people being held hostage by the components,' the paper notes that 'Congolese politicians had embraced the irrational' during the Sun City Inter Congolese Dialogue by 'deciding to let the components to actively and daily interfere in the management of state affairs.'
Irrational because ' a political party, however powerful, remains a private association,' argues L'AVENIR.
Today's press also reports an upsurge in insecurity across the country.
In Kinshasa, a human rights group 'has reported 4 murders in the first week of June alone,' LA TEMPETE DES TROPIQUES notes. A village in Bas Congo province has been looted by soldiers, L'OBSERVATEUR denounces. In the east, '3 Congolese soldiers have been killed by Rwandan FDLR rebels,' report LE POTENTIEL and LA TEMPETE DES TROPIQUES, quoting the French news agency AFP.
On the subject of the FDLR, LA REFERENCE PLUS notes 'a row between the DRC and Rwanda.' According to the paper, the two countries' differences surfaced at the June 2-3 COMESA summit in Kigali. While Congolese Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba 'stressed that peace and security in the DRC depended on the departure of the Interahamwe (FDLR),' the Rwandan Prime Minister, Bernard Mkuza, stated that Rwanda 'agreed with that' but insisted that his country's 'justice system needed to check who did what during the genocide' of 1994.
In its editorial, L'OBSERVATEUR reports the local population in Walungu (South Kivu) as demanding peace instead of food assistance that they receiving. 'The leaders and the international community should guarantee them peace and a safe return home ' in other words, peace and security, not charity,' the paper writes.
For its part, LE PALMARES in its leading story refers to remarks made in Paris by Honoré Ngbanda, a former security advisor under the Mobutu regime, on the occasion of the presentation of his political party. According to the paper, the former head of intelligence services in the then Zaire said the institutional order arising from the Global and All Inclusive Agreement can only be 'flawed' since it is based on 'false premises', namely, 'the lies about the security threat to Rwanda, the nature of the Congolese that is falsely presented as rooted in an identity crisis facing a tribe that does not exist, and as involving national actors while in fact the country is victim of an aggression.'
While announcing that 'the results of the recruitment test for electoral registration supervisors and agents will be published on June 30 for Kinshasa,' L'OBSERVATEUR notes that 'for neutrality reasons, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has trusted the general Inspection of Elementary and Secondary Education (EPSP) with the organisation of that test', since EPSP is experienced in handling hundreds of thousands test copies in the context of national examination for secondary school graduates. 'The General Inspection's role is to ensure that examination copies are corrected and the results published,' the paper quotes the EPSP chief inspector as saying.
LE POTENTIEL mentions the conference of provincial governors that is taking place at the ministry of Interior to discuss 'territorial security in anticipation of pre-electoral operations.'
In a piece titled 'Members of Parliaments on tight scheduled', LA TEMPETE DES TROPIQUES reports that the MPs want to work hard so as to take their parliamentary holiday before the end of June.' According to the paper, it is envisaged that the MPs 'anticipatively receive their wages' and that 'the vehicles ordered be delivered on June 30 at the latest.' There is no doubt that 'the MPs are trembling at the prospect of June 30,' LA TEMPETE DES TROPIQUES concludes.
'The components, a catastrophe.' Under this headline, L'AVENIR criticises the components and entities in the government for 'dragging their feet' after President Joseph Kabila, in his June 4 letter, requested that each submit their assessment of the transition process. Further denouncing what it describes as ' the people being held hostage by the components,' the paper notes that 'Congolese politicians had embraced the irrational' during the Sun City Inter Congolese Dialogue by 'deciding to let the components to actively and daily interfere in the management of state affairs.'
Irrational because ' a political party, however powerful, remains a private association,' argues L'AVENIR.
Today's press also reports an upsurge in insecurity across the country.
In Kinshasa, a human rights group 'has reported 4 murders in the first week of June alone,' LA TEMPETE DES TROPIQUES notes. A village in Bas Congo province has been looted by soldiers, L'OBSERVATEUR denounces. In the east, '3 Congolese soldiers have been killed by Rwandan FDLR rebels,' report LE POTENTIEL and LA TEMPETE DES TROPIQUES, quoting the French news agency AFP.
On the subject of the FDLR, LA REFERENCE PLUS notes 'a row between the DRC and Rwanda.' According to the paper, the two countries' differences surfaced at the June 2-3 COMESA summit in Kigali. While Congolese Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba 'stressed that peace and security in the DRC depended on the departure of the Interahamwe (FDLR),' the Rwandan Prime Minister, Bernard Mkuza, stated that Rwanda 'agreed with that' but insisted that his country's 'justice system needed to check who did what during the genocide' of 1994.
In its editorial, L'OBSERVATEUR reports the local population in Walungu (South Kivu) as demanding peace instead of food assistance that they receiving. 'The leaders and the international community should guarantee them peace and a safe return home ' in other words, peace and security, not charity,' the paper writes.
For its part, LE PALMARES in its leading story refers to remarks made in Paris by Honoré Ngbanda, a former security advisor under the Mobutu regime, on the occasion of the presentation of his political party. According to the paper, the former head of intelligence services in the then Zaire said the institutional order arising from the Global and All Inclusive Agreement can only be 'flawed' since it is based on 'false premises', namely, 'the lies about the security threat to Rwanda, the nature of the Congolese that is falsely presented as rooted in an identity crisis facing a tribe that does not exist, and as involving national actors while in fact the country is victim of an aggression.'
