Kinshasa affirms need for dialogue while restricting speech

The government of President Laurent-Desire Kabila was currently sending “very mixed messages” in relation to the inter-Congolese talks on the country’s political future: on the one hand affirming its interest in the national dialogue, on the other “continuing arrests and harassment of party and human rights activists”, US Special Envoy to the Great Lakes region Howard Wolpe told the House sub-committee on Africa in Washington last week. A new government decree allowing political activity only within government-sponsored “people’s power committees” suggested “a continued effort to restrict open debate and to manipulate the negotiating framework”, a US statement on Friday quoted Wolpe as saying.