Didace
Namujimbo, a journalist for Radio Okapi,
was shot
dead on the night of November 21, 2008. Now, after repeated delays, a military
court in Bukavu,
capital of the province
of South Kivu in eastern
Democratic Republic of Congo, is putting on trial a dozen people charged in
connection with the murder.
According to investigations by military prosecutors and
statements from the accused, three army officers—Adjutant Tshimanga aka Dureman
(now deceased), 1st Quartermaster Sgt. Seba Tandema, and Warrant Officer Oscar Tshenda
Kashama—and a civilian, Mushamuka Bashengezi, ambushed Didace at the stone and
cement stairs descending from Bukavu’s Vamaro Avenue toward Mukukwe Valley on that
Friday evening in 2008. The other defendants were tracked down from records of
Didace’s stolen phones after the murder. They face various criminal charges for
handling items stolen from the victim.
Proceedings began in January, during which the defendant
Tandema declared that the now-dead suspect Dureman was the shooter. Motives and
roles in the killing, though, remain uncertain.
In the courtroom, laid on a table before the clerk of the court
one recent day, are some key pieces of evidence: a now-rusty AK-47 assault
rifle, cartridges, including a spent round found at the crime scene, among
other things. The audience holds its breath, suffocating in intense heat
tempered only by breezes from nearby Lake
Kivu. A battalion of lawyers—20 of them—pour into oratorical contests. As
the trial began, Joel Mapatano, counsel for the plaintiff, the family of Peter
Namujimbo (the father of the slain journalist), contested the competence of the
military tribunal to try the two female civilians among the charged. Lawyers for
the defendants pointed out that some of their clients had already spent as many
as 14 months in prison. Adjournments ordered by the panel of five magistrates
leave the audience to disperse, disappointed and speculative.
In the bars and restaurants of Bukavu, the trial is a
popular topic of conversation. At the Pretoria bar on Lumumba Avenue in the district
of Ibanda, where Didace’s elder brother Déo was a regular, you can overhear
speculation about the trial as people savor skewers of goat meat, sip bottles
of beer, and listen to Werrason’s “Techno Malewa” hit album.
They wonder why the main suspects, who left Nyamugo district around 7:30 p.m.
and arrived at the Vamaro Avenue
stairway to await and kill Didace past 9 p.m., did not attack any other person that
night. “It would be a setup,” they say, or “balimuvizia,” meaning in Swahili that
Didace was targeted.
The trial occurs more than one year after Didace’s death. In
contrast, the murder trial of Didace’s friend and colleague at Radio Okapi, Serge Maheshe, had
opened the day after Maheshe’s assassination.
Unlike the Maheshe trial, whose hearings were held outdoors at the central
police station of Bukavu, this trial takes place in a narrow courtroom, slightly
withdrawn from the city center, in a certain seclusion. The hearings are not broadcast
live on local radio or television. I am covering the proceedings on behalf of Radio Maendeleo along with
journalists of Radio Okapi and Radio Nene la Uzima. Attending the hearings are
representatives of the Division of Human Rights of the UN Mission in DR Congo (Monuc).
I have a personal connection to the case. Didace was the
younger brother of Déo
Namujimbo, a former colleague with the Syfia Great Lakes news agency who
is now a refugee in France.
Déo said he was threatened after the murder of his little brother. Didace,
whose childhood name was Munyi, was a good player and a good referee in basketball.
The local association of basketball organizes each November a tournament in his
memory.
Dieudonné Malekera Bahati is a freelance
journalist based in Bukavu, South Kivu, in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
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Poor Didace Namujimbo! He is just paying the price of the good from the bad ones. Journalists are and endangered species, especially in the hands of African dictators. When shall this end? They have gone in their numbers: Dele Giwa died of a letter bomb from Babangida, and several others had died and will continue to die.
Journalism is a very interesting profession but can also turn out to be a very dangerous undertaking as poor Didace Namujimbo killing illustrates yet we have a duty to do, to seek to make the world a better place to live in through the power of the pen.
What a tragic and sickening story.The courage of journalists is incredible; they operate against such terrible odds. they are so essential to get the truth out.
am coongolese living in south africa and i love my land but we have to something about our country.