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CENCO is disgusted to see that many demonstrators marched with bladed weapons (machetes, sticks, stones, etc.) in full view of the police without being arrested. This declaration is contained in a press release published this Monday, May 22 by Mgr Donatien Nshole, Secretary General of CENCO, following the repression of the march organized on Saturday, May 20 by the opposition in Kinshasa.
“Worse still, some elements of the National Police were carrying the same tools of violence that they visibly exchanged with individuals in civilian clothes, some of whom were wearing the BSU or UDPS Special Brigade, Force for Progress back. With such publicly displayed complicity, one wonders if this Special Brigade is not an officially maintained militia,” wonder the Catholic prelates.
“The height of all is the despicable and savage repression that the police and their accomplice militia inflicted on the demonstrators, including minors found on their way. In carrying out their macabre work, they did not hesitate to fire live ammunition, even targeting the vehicle of a political leader,” recalls the press release.
Need for law enforcement at the front to secure the country
CENCO condemns all these monstrosities as well as the violence that followed, wherever it came from:
“CENCO expects concrete actions from the competent authorities, beyond the media promises of investigations and justice (to which we are accustomed and which often remain unfulfilled), to put out of harm’s way this whole series of thugs easily identifiable. We greatly need law enforcement at the front to secure the country and not to bully the population in the cities”.
CENCO deplores the fact that the Government of the city of Kinshasa authorized these marches on the same day and at practically the same times. She also denounces the fact of having verbally changed the route planned by the political opposition 24 hours before. Which, according to CENCO, borders on a provocation insofar as this change was likely to disrupt the planning of the organizers.
“CENCO urges the Congolese people not to give in to fear in the face of organized barbarism to intimidate them. If nothing is done to guarantee his fundamental rights, he will soon have to exercise his power to punish all the incompetents”the statement concludes.
