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Paris, France | AFP | A former DR Congo army colonel who threatened an uprising against President Joseph Kabila has been arrested in neighbouring Tanzania, which may be preparing to extradite him, a rights group said Thursday.
John Tshibangu, who deserted to rebel against Kabila in 2012, said in a video posted on social media on January 18 that he would “remove” the president within 45 days unless he apologised for a “massacre” of demonstrators on December 31, 2017.
Catholic and opposition groups had defied a ban on demonstrations to demand that Kabila leave office, prompting a crackdown that left at least five dead and scores injured, according to UN figures.
Tshibangu was arrested at Dar es Salaam airport on Monday night, according to the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH).
“His family in Paris asked for our assistance to avoid extradition,” said Florent Geel, the group’s Africa director.
“We do not endorse this man’s armed struggle, but there’s a risk of physical harm if he is extradited to DR Congo,” he said.
Authorities in both DR Congo and Tanzania declined to comment when contacted by AFP.
Kabila, in power since the assassination of his father Laurent in 2001, is at the helm of a regime widely criticised for corruption, repression and incompetence.
The UN mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo reported last week that “state agents” — mainly the armed forces — carried out 1,176 extra-judicial killings last year, including at least 89 women and 213 children.
The mineral-rich but deeply poor country is in the grip of overlapping political and ethnic crises, with much of its eastern territory in the hands of rival militia groups competing over resources.
Kabila was supposed to leave office in December 2016, having served the maximum two terms under the country’s constitution, but he refused to step down.
The Catholic Church eventually brokered a deal whereby new elections would be held by the end of 2017, only to see Kabila postpone the vote to December 23, 2018.
That sparked a series of rallies demanding his departure, each of which has been repressed by the security forces.
