Hundreds protest over Belgian arrest warrant

Hundreds of people in the capital Kinshasa on Wednesday demonstrated against an arrest warrant for the DRC foreign minister, Yerodia Abdoulaye Ndombasi, issued last week by a Belgian judge, according to Reuters news agency. The minister is charged with inciting ethnic hatred against the Tutsis in 1998. The demonstration is said to have been organised by the state-sponsored popular civil defence force, whose leader, Justin Bitakuria, read a statement outside the Belgian embassy, saying “Rwandans should not be allowed to put themselves between Belgium and the Congo”.

The Belgian ambassador to the DRC, Frank de Coninck, said he understood that the Congolese people saw the move as a “very confusing and incoherent signal” from Belgium. “I regret the embarrassment this has caused Congo,” he told journalists after meeting Interior Minister Gaetan Kakudji on Tuesday. “I must point out that there is just as much embarrassment in Belgium where only yesterday there was a huge political controversy at the foreign affairs commission as the foreign minister was vehemently attacked over his African and Congolese policy,” he said, in comments broadcast by DRC state television. The ambassador added that he would try to find a solution satisfactory to both sides.