AFRICA/DR CONGO - "Civil society has been taken hostage by politics" denounces CEPADHO

Kinshasa (Agenzia Fides) - "Congolese civil society has been taken hostage by politics" complains CEPADHO (Study Centre for the Promotion of peace, of democracy and human rights), a civil society organization in North Kivu, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, in a statement sent to Agenzia Fides, on negotiations for the implementation of the political agreement of December 31 (see Fides 30/01/2017).
The parties of the presidential majority, the opposition who signed the agreement of 18 October 2016 (see Fides 10/18/2016) and those who asked the abandonment of power of President Josesph Kabila, whose mandate expired on 19 December, sat at the negotiating table, mediated by the Congolese Bishops.
"As for the compromise on the management of our Country, our organization points out that the political actors reserve civil society a place and a minor role" the statement said.
CEPADHO in particular complains that in the new national unity government only 2 out of 53 seats are reserved for representatives of civil society.
"This way of reducing the role of civil society is to be perceived as the deliberate will of the Congolese political actors to exclude the people from the management of public affairs and therefore, from the organization of free, democratic and transparent elections," the statement emphasizes.
"CEPADHO reminds national and international opinion that having been assigned to the future government the task of organizing the elections, it will not succeed in excluding civil society", it concludes. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 31/01/2017)

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