DRC: Searches of a political opponent and one of his collaborators
Thursday, June 8, the residences of Moïse Katumbi, national president of the Together for the Republic party, and of his strategic adviser Salomon Idi Kalonda Della were raided by the Congolese military intelligence services. The first search took place in Kinshasa, at Katumbi’s residence in the GB district, while the second took place in Lubumbashi, at his collaborator’s. These searches are perceived as political harassment by Ensemble pour la République, which denounces the “more and too much abuse” of the regime in place and calls on the population to resist.
The communication of the political party is clear: “Together for the Republic condemns and denounces as more and too much abuse, the searches carried out today in the residence of its national president and in that of his collaborator whose arbitrary detention is in course, like a harassment that only aims to muzzle the opposition and veil the insufficiencies of the power in place.
According to the secretary general of Ensemble pour la République, Dieudonné Bolengetenge, the searches took place without the owner of the premises having been informed of the action, while he was absent from Kinshasa. The agents reportedly refused access to the owner’s lawyers, cordoned off part of the neighborhood and evacuated all those present in the vicinity.
In addition, a close collaborator of Moïse Katumbi, Salomon Kalonda, was arrested at Ndjili airport in Kinshasa, on his way to Lubumbashi after demonstrations organized by four opposition leaders. The military intelligence services accuse him of the illegal possession of a firearm, and of having wanted to overthrow the power in place, in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In response to these searches, Together for the Republic invites the Congolese to resist against the dictatorial drift that the power is preparing. For the party, national cohesion is already seriously threatened by insecurity and poverty, and the population must mobilize to face these challenges.
This operation takes place in a context marked by insecurity in the eastern regions of the DRC, particularly in the province of Ituri, where ethnic violence has claimed nearly 300 lives since the beginning of the year. Faced with this crisis, the government launched military operations to neutralize the armed groups involved in the violence