24 February 2006 01:41:46
Congo Vice President Keeps His Helicopter Busy As Election Date Closes In
Another snapshot from my balcony, this time of Jean-Pierre Bemba's heli over the Congo River.
Jean-Pierre Bemba, one of Congo's vice presidents, has been using his helicopter lately. Like himself, it's big and fancy, and going nowhere. The helicopter is more of an escape route than a mode of transportation.
His party is called MLC: Mouvement de Libération du Congo. As elections get underway (June, maybe), his party will face Kabila's Parti du Peuple Pour la Reconstruction et la Démocratie. Another "important" party on the list is Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie.
Read the names of these parties again, and you'll notice that the election is a fraud before it even started. This country needs a party called Single Party <for a Dictatorship Against Corruption.
Update: His chopper now looks like this after it was destroyed in August 2006.
Wow, that's a lot of money!!! The minimum salary in the country must be about what, 10$ an hour? I may have to come back home, and get myself a job. I did not realized we had been doing so well economically, that our leaders could award themselves such high salaries! We must have become a member of the G7 in my sleep...
(just to make sure you get it, I am VERY sarcastic... shame on that energumene of Bemba for stealing my future children's money)
kim says:
Who pays for this? It depends who answers.
If you ask Bemba, he'll answer his private funds (he's a millionaire).
If you ask me, I'll say it's also the Congolese people he ransoms. A vice president earns 25 000 dollars a month, I heard.
Lina says:
Do we know who pays for it?
kim says:
After visiting Ethiopia, I appreciate "free" press in Congo, albeit Franck Ngyke's assassination last year and other form of harrasment.
I think local journalists themselves have to learn a lot, since very few report objectively.
As for me, the blog is self motivated and his not meant to be news or verified facts.
See how Congo rates in free press in 2005 according to RSF:
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=15317
My favorite is Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie. Every word is a lie: it's not a rally, it's not entirely Congolese and it's especially not democratic!
TheMalau says: