DR CONGO: Rights Defender's Death Renews Calls to End Impunity

• by Emmanuel Chaco (kinshasa)
• Thursday, June 03, 2010
• Inter Press Service

Chebeya was a human rights activist for more than 25 years in the eastern city of Bukavu and in the capital, Kinshasa. He had frequently been threatened by the authorities.

'His body was found stretched out on the rear seat by people in the area, who alerted police,' General Jean de Dieu Oleko, chief of police for Kinshasa, told IPS.

'(The body) bore no visible signs of an assault. The signs around the scene and the body itself were not enough to establish the circumstances of his death,' Oleko said. 'Meanwhile, the body Chebeya's driver has still not been found.'

But the facts around Chebeya's death are disputed.

The U.N. Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Philip Alston, said the circumstances of the killing 'strongly suggest official responsibility'. Local and international organisations including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have called for an independent investigation.

Conflicting reports

According to Lieutenant Colonel Jean Siasia from the national police, used condoms, a sexual stimulant and traces of fingernails and hair from a wig were found in the car alongside the body.

Robert Ilunga, a human rights defender presently leading civil society protests around Chebeya's death, rejects the implication, saying that as no tests have been carried out, the used condoms could belong to anyone.

He told IPS the suggestion that the dead activist had been with prostitutes is out of character. 'Chebeya was always an example of good conduct and morals at the heart of Congolese civil society.'

Ilunga and another activist who worked with Chebeya, Godé Mpiana, say that head of VSV received a phone call on Jun. 1 inviting him to a meeting with General John Numbi, the Inspector General of DRC's national police. Chebeya duly left to attend this meeting, but around 8 p.m., he phoned family to say he had received an sms to the effect that the general could no longer see him.

His body was found in his car in the Mont Ngafula neighbourhood early the next morning.

According to Human Rights Watch, the body of Chebeya's driver, Fidèle Bazana Edadi, was found on Jun. 3, but police were still appealing for help in finding the body on state television late that night.

Human Rights Watch also says his family was initially denied access to his body. When a family member, accompanied by one of Chebeya's colleagues and a representative of the United Nations, did see the body, HRW says there was a bandage wrapped around his head; most of his body remained covered during the visit.

Police deny that there were any wounds on the body.

Demands for independent investigation

'The government must put in place a joint and independent commission to clarify the circumstances of this death,' Mpiana told IPS. 'But the indications lead us to fear that we are looking at an assassination. We have had enough of impunity for murderers who strike more and more frequently against journalists and human rights defenders.'

George Kazadi, a journalist and member of the Congolese Coalition for the International Criminal Court, said, 'This death reopens the demands already formulated by us against impunity.

'While we await the outcome of the trials opened into the assassination of at least six journalists and three human rights defenders in the space of five years, here is another assassination to which the authorities will likely remain insensitive.'

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay said, 'His death is a great loss to the human rights community not only in the DRC but in the wider world. I urge the DRC authorities to promptly and rigorously investigate the death of Chebeya Bahizire and spare no efforts to ensure that those responsible are brought to justice.'

© Inter Press Service (2010) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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