His Excellency Mr. Daniel Arap Moi
President of the Republic of Kenya
C/0 His Excellency the High Commissioner
of the Republic of Kenya
Pretoria.
Republic of South Africa.
Excellency Mr. President,
Re: Protest against the appointment of Mr.Gabriel Kyungu
wa Kumwanza as Ambassador.
The Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS), South
African Federation wishes first of all to present to you and to the Kenyan people its
kindest and fraternal regards. At this moment where Congolese people are bereaved by an
undesired war, the UDPS would like to present to your Excellency its gratitude for the
efforts your government has deployed to bring about peace in Congo.
Mr. President, it has come to our attention that Mr.
Gabriel Kyungu wa Kumwanza has been appointed by President Laurent Kabila as ambassador of
the Democratic Republic Congo to Nairobi. The UDPS is equally aware that Mr. Gabriel
Kyungu who presented his credentials earlier this month has taken his functions as
diplomatic representative of Congolese people in your country.
The UDPS would like, for the record to bring to your
attention that Mr. Kyungu wa Kumwanza has been accused by the party and Congolese people
for being responsible of incitement to ethnic hatred and genocide of a section of the
population.
As matter of fact, Mr. Kyungu Wa Kumwanza then Governor of
the copper province of Shaba (Katanga) initiated in 1992, with a tacit approval of
President Mobutu and the Primer Minister Jean Nguz, an open campaign of hatred against the
people originated from Kasai province who have settled in the province for several
generations. Many amongst them where UDPS supporters and members.
The campaign of incitement to genocide ended up in cycle
of unrest and violence by Kyungu's drugged militia (JUFERI) towards Kasai people. The
outcome of this demonic plan was looting, rape and systematic killing on the spot of as
many as 10.000 people and the eviction of hundred of thousands from their jobs and homes.
Driven by sadism and extermination aim Mr. Kyungu gathered
for months his victims in "concentration camps" built at the railway stations in
Kolwezi and Likasi (two major mining towns) for hypothetical trains to take them to their
original province. In those "death camps" people were subjected to infra-human
conditions with no shelter, no food, no medicine, no sanitary facilities. As a result many
Kasai people particularly children and women died from starvation and disease.
In their way to Kasai, Kyungu's victims who left behind
their homes and belongings were overcrowded in open wagons like livestock. Their trips
were planned to yearn in order to exterminate them by way of disease and lack of food.
Some of the journeys lasted 3 months while regularly trains take just two days to cover a
distance of 1000 kilometres.
The toll of Kyungu's genocide plan was more or less
300.000 Kasai people displaced from Katanga to Zambia and Kasai province, more or less
10.000 people killed and more or less 30.000 people who died from starvation and disease.
Your Excellency,
All of this was done against the terms of our constitution
and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which stipulated that people are free to
settle in any part of their country as they wish. All of those killings were done in
transgression of the 1948 Convention against genocide. This holocaust has been perpetrated
in front of a conniving silence of Mobutu's government, the irresponsible silence of
humanitarian organisations like the " Médecins Sans Frontières" that eye
witnessed the events without denouncing them. All those horrible crimes were done in front
of the culpable silence of the OAU, the UN and the international Community.
In view of the aforementioned, Mr. Gabriel Kyungu wa
Kumwanza deserves for the posterity a trial before the courts of the DRC and the
international tribunal for incitement to ethnic hatred, violence and genocide against a
section of the population of Congo. Mr. Kyungu's place is in a court-room and not amongst
respectable and honourable ambassadors. The UDPS would like to recall that genocide is a
crime against humanity and then the presence of Mr. Gabriel Kyungu wa Kumwanza amongst
diplomats in Nairobi will tarnish the image of the diplomatic body since his hands are
full of blood of innocent citizens of Congo.
Therefore the UDPS protests against the appointment of Mr.
Gabriel Kyungu wa Kumwanza as representative of Congolese people in your country and
accuses President Laurent Kabila of connivance with a " criminal". It kindly
requests you to reject Mr. Kyungu's credentials, to arrest him for crime against humanity
and to bring him to justice.
Contacts have been made with the International tribunal of
Arusha in order to try Mr. Gabriel Kyungu wa Kumwanza.
The UDPS hopes that this memorandum will receive your
utmost attention
Sincerely yours
Mutombo Kabundji
President UDPS-South-Africa
