His Excellency Joseph Kabila
President of the Republic
Kinshasa
Democratic Republic of Congo

Vienna, 18 May 2001

Your Excellency

The International Press Institute (IPI), the global network of editors and media executives, is extremely concerned about the recent closure of the Kinshasa based private newspaper La Libre Afrique and suspects political motives, unmentioned in the official explanation, are the reason for the closure.

According to our sources, the Minister of Communications and Press, Kikaya bin Karubi, banned the publication of the newspaper La Libre Afrique, as well as its supplements Le Derby and Incognito in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on 10 May 2001. The minister justified his decision by saying, “The administrative documents received by the newspaper La Libre Afrique and its supplements Le Derby and Incognito were issued on the basis of false statements made to the administration with regard to the newspaper’s and its printer’s addresses, as well as the publication director’s status as a professional journalist.” Kikaya added that La Libre Afrique failed to fulfil its legal obligation to publish the name and the address of the printer in each copy of the newspaper, “which would allow for the verification of the newspaper’s administrative and jurisdictional acts.”

Apart from a procedural illegality related to the ban – the 48-hour timeframe for banning publications, stipulated by Article 44 of the DRC press law, was exceeded by almost two months – there are worrying political motives which seem to have prompted the closure of La Libre Afrique.

The newspaper recently accused Zimbabwean troops, the main allies of Your Excellency’s government, of womanising and spreading AIDS in the DRC and of failing to recapture any of Congo’s territory lost to Ugandan and Rwandan-backed rebels, who are fighting to overthrow the government. In addition, the newspaper questioned the continued stay of the Zimbabwean troops in the DRC, saying they were a drain on the country’s meagre financial resources and were not helping to win the war against the rebels. “Since the Zimbabweans came to Congo, they have not recaptured a single village,” argued the newspaper, “so why do they have to stay here?”

Aside from these claims, the newspaper stated that the US$ 20 per day given to Zimbabwean soldiers was 10 times higher than the daily rate paid to Congolese soldiers. It also claimed that Air Zimbabwe was receiving free petrol from a Congolese company and that Zimbabwe had been granted huge mineral concessions in the DRC.

Minister Karubi, who until his appointment to Your Excellency’s cabinet last month served as the DRC’s ambassador to Zimbabwe, denied having acted under pressure from Zimbabwe in his decision to close down the paper. However, IPI’s sources insist that Zimbabwean military commanders in the DRC directed the Congolese government to close La Libre Afrique.

IPI welcomes the 17 May withdrawal by your government of the ban on political activities in the DRC and, as a result, we look forward to a revitalised climate of tolerance and respect for human rights in the country. However, we also regard the closure of La Libre Afrique as a gross violation of everyone’s right to “seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers” as guaranteed by Article 19 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Therefore, IPI urges Your Excellency to allow the newspaper to resume publishing immediately and unconditionally and to ensure that all necessary steps are taken to guarantee that journalists are allowed to report freely on developments in the DRC.

We thank you for your attention.

Yours sincerely,

Johann P. Fritz
Director