Eastern DRC: Fears that unfounded accusations by conservation authorities will incite violence

The management of Kahuzi-Biega National Park is becoming desperate in its attempts to discredit local Batwa leaders, and in doing so, is putting them and those that support them in danger.

In an article, dated 15 October 2020, the official spokesperson of Kahuzi-Biega National Park accuses a Batwa leader, Jean-Marie Kasula, of carrying out an armed attack on a convoy including the provincial Minister of Agriculture. The article also suggests that CAMV, FPP’s Congolese partner, and FPP itself could have provided the weapons for this attack.

In the context of South Kivu, where instability and insecurity are, sadly, the norm, this kind of unsubstantiated public statement is incredibly dangerous. We fear for the safety of M. Kasula and his family and we fear for the safety of our friends and colleagues at CAMV: unfounded accusations about involvement in attacks on prominent people put lives directly in danger.

We also contest the whole basis of the article, which is false or misleading in almost every respect.

On 4 February this year, Jean-Marie Kasula and three co-defendants were condemned to prison along with four others, after a one-day trial that did not follow due process. Since that time, a respected group of lawyers has been supporting all eight defendants in an appeal against their sentences and imprisonment.

Two of the women, who had been sentenced to one year in prison, were released in August. In September, M. Kasula, who is an older man, and a co-defendant who has diabetes and was not receiving treatment in prison, were released on bail, pending their appeal.

The article suggested that this release was “mysterious” and that the sentence has been overturned. Neither of these are true: the release followed a well-documented legal process and the sentence has not yet been overturned.

The article also directly accuses M. Kasula of attacking the convoy, but provides no evidence for this at all. It suggests that the attack was directly encouraged by CAMV and Forest Peoples Programme, again providing no evidence, and even hints that that our organisations might have armed the attackers. This latter statement is utterly unfounded and defamatory.

We have requested that Kahuzi-Biega National Park takes down this incendiary article and issues a public apology for its defamatory statements.

We strongly suggest that instead of inciting further conflict, the Park authorities start to seriously address the historic injustice done to the Batwa of Kahuzi-Biega in excluding them from their ancestral lands.