VZCZCXRO4411
RR RUEHMR RUEHPA RUEHSR
DE RUEHKI #0589/01 1061253
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 161253Z APR 06
FM AMEMBASSY KINSHASA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 3673
INFO RUEHZO/AFRICAN UNION COLLECTIVE
RUEHZJ/HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISION COLLECTIVE
RUEHGG/UN SECURITY COUNCIL COLLECTIVE
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS 1065

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KINSHASA 000589 
 
SIPDIS 
 
NOFORN 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR AF/C MADEEHA ASHRAF 
AF/RSA MARINDA HARPOLE 
PARIS FOR AFRICA WATCHER GREG D'ELIA 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/16/2016 
TAGS: PHUM PREL PGOV PINR AU CF
SUBJECT: CONGO/BRAZZAVILLE:  MOUNZEO-MACKOSSO (PWYP) 
ARRESTS IN .          POINTE NOIRE - AN NGO INTERNAL AFFAIR 
 
REF: A. (A) GLOBAL WITNESS/SARAH WYCKES EMAILS 
     ¶B. (B) 05 KINSHASA 1329 
 
Classified By: CDA Mark J. Biedlingmaier, Reasons 1.4 (B)(D) 
 
¶1.  (U)  Summary:  In the wake of PWYP (Publish What You Pay) 
Coalition charges of political intimidation and procedural 
irregularities in the arrest of transparency campaigners 
Christian Mounzeo and Brice Mackosso, embassy officers 
contacted key host-government authorities, NGO liaison 
officers and international organization representatives to 
assess the validity of the criminal accusations lodged 
following the duo's detention, release and re-arrest the week 
of April 6-13.  The pair was formally charged with breach of 
trust and forgery on April 12, by a court in Pointe Noire, in 
a civil complaint posted by Wilfred Bouaka, Secretary General 
of RPDH (Rencontre pour la Paix et les Droits de l'Homme). 
Mr. Mounzeo currently serves as President of RPDH and was 
formerly the Secretary General of another NGO based in 
Brazzaville, OCDH (Observatoire Congolais des Droits de 
l'Homme), from which he resigned following charges of 
misappropriation of funds.  Mr. Mackosso is associated with 
the Congolese Jusice and Peace C 
ommission.  Press Statements released by Global Witness 
chairperson Sarah Wykes and the Congolese Catholic Episcopal 
Conference have called for the immediate release of Mounzeo 
and Mackosso; however, the Director General of the Pointe 
Noire police, Jean-Francois N'Dengue, considers them to be a 
flight risk.  Although minor irregularities of due process of 
law have been noted by local observers, the prevailing 
sentiment among international, NGO and diplomatic community 
representatives favors the Prosecutor General's claims of 
financial mismanagement and fraud rather than an orchestrated 
campaign of political harassment stemming from prior 
involvement in the "Beach Trials" held in Brazzaville, 
2004-2005.  End Summary. 
 
¶2.  (C)  Charge d'affaires contacted Secretary General of the 
Foreign Ministry, Ambassador Daniel Owassa, on April 10 to 
express concern over the apparent arbitrary arrest and 
incarceration of leading human rights and transparency 
campaigners Christian Mounzeo and Brice Mackosso, as reported 
by Global Witness and the Publish What You Pay (PWYP) 
Coalition .  The incident had received wide international 
press coverage since the initial detention of the duo in 
Pointe Noire on April 6, their release from "protective 
confinement" on April 7 at the direction of the Prime 
Minister, and subsequent re-arrest the following day.  The 
Charge d'affaires noted that the U.S. Embassy, UNHCR, ICRC 
(International Committee of the Red Cross), representatives 
of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and other 
western embassies (Belgium, France) had received a barrage of 
e-mails from Global Witness demanding action from the 
international community to demarche host-government 
authorities to release Mounzeo and Mackosso to t 
heir lawyer, Maitre Magloire Senga, and to demand due process 
of law.  Owassa stated that he was unaware of all 
circumstances surrounding this case, and immediately called 
Foreign Minister Rodolphe Adada to report the substance of 
this conversation.  IMF Resident Representative, Dr. Yaya 
Moussa, informed the Charge d'affaires that his Washington 
headquarters had instructed him to make a similar demarche, 
which was delivered on April 9 to the special counsellor to 
Prime Minister Isidore Mvouba, who was travelling with 
President Sassou-Nguesso on a four-nation tour to Cote 
d'Ivoire, Senegal, Nigeria and Benin.  IMF feared strong 
negative repercussions from the international community in 
light of Congo's recent approval for substantial HIPC debt 
relief from the World Bank, and allegations that Mounzeo and 
Mackosso, co-coordinators of the Congolese branch of Publish 
What You Pay (PWYP) Coalition, were being targeted for their 
ardent support of the Extractive Industries Transparency 
Initiative (EITI), a global pro 
cess which promotes transparency in the reporting of oil and 
mining revenues, and for their outspoken roles in the "Beach 
Trials" held in Brazzaville, 2004-2005, which involved 
several high-ranking military and government officials 
implicated in the brutal slaughter of an estimated 300 
Congolese citizens. 
 
¶3.  (C)  On April 12, Emboffs met with Mr. Cephas Ewangui, a 
reliable source and longtime collaborator of the embassy, who 
serves as President of the "Association Panafricaine Thomas 
Sankara."  Mr. Ewangui was unshaken in his belief that the 
 
KINSHASA 00000589  002 OF 003 
 
 
RPDH incident in Pointe Noire stemmed from financial 
mismanagement and fraud, not political intimidation or 
harassment of Mounzeo and Mackosso.  He noted that Mr. 
Mounzeo had been fired from his position as Secretary General 
of OCDH in Brazzaville in 2004, and then, moved to Pointe 
Noire to accept an offer from Wilfred Bouaka, plantiff in the 
current court proceedings, to serve as President of RPDH. 
According to Ewangui, Mounzeo and Bouaka had a "parting of 
the ways at RPDH" and until recently had maintained a joint 
bank account for the NGO.  Mr. Mounzeo and co-defendant, 
Brice Mackosso,  recently co-signed a document to withdraw 
3000 Euros from this joint account, apparently without the 
knowledge of Mr. Bouaka, which is the basis of the current 
legal action, as Mr. Boua 
ka, not Mr. Mackosso, should have been the co-signee on the 
withdrawal.  Mr. Ewangui travelled to Pointe Noire on April 
12, confirmed this version of events with the Prosecutor 
General, and reported to the embassy that both Mounzeo and 
Mackosso had admitted guilt in the affair.  According to 
Congolese law, the defendants may be held for a period of 
four months subject to further investigation of the 
allegations before proceeding to trial.  Mr. Ewangui added 
that, contrary to what had been published and widely 
disseminated by Global Witness, Mounzeo and Mackosso did 
receive access to legal counsel, and that its spokesperson, 
Sarah Wykes, was informed of the substance of the financial 
fraud charges.  He also stated that Mounzeo and Mackosso were 
refusing to cooperate in the investigation of the matter and 
that the NGO community believed this "internal matter" should 
have been resolved peacefully, out-of-court several months 
ago. 
 
¶4.  (C)  On April 13, Charge d'affairs and POL/FSN Brice 
Biabaro met with Mr. Roger Bouka, a member of the Observer 
Commission on Arbitrary Detention and Protection of Human 
Rights (ADHUC) and a former associate of Mr. Mounzeo, to 
corroborate the views expressed by Mr. Ewangui and other 
well-placed sources in the diplomatic community.  Following 
his investigation of the matter through colleagues in Pointe 
Noire, Mr. Bouka was also convinced that this affair was an 
internal matter between sparring factions of an NGO, and 
unfortunately, he believed this incident would reflect 
negatively on the reputation of other NGOs in the Republic of 
Congo striving for credibility, stature and recognition as 
responsible members of civil society.  He lamented the fact 
that many Human Rights NGOs were perceived to have "sold-out" 
to the United States or France, and in some quadrants, seen 
as "enemies of the state," but in this case, greed, not 
political retribution, seemed to have been the motive for the 
detention and arrest o 
f Mounzeo and Mackosso.  Bouka commented that events "moved 
quickly" in Pointe Noire, referring to the initial detention 
of the pair, search and seizure of documents from their 
residence related to the case, and imprecision in both the 
media and from local authorities as to the basis of the 
arrests.  This led some observers to speculate that the 
action was politically motivated rather than a civil matter 
predicated on funds misappropriation. 
 
¶5.  (C)  By late evening April 14, IMF Resident 
Representative Moussa and Charge d'affaires agreed that no 
further action should be taken on this matter at this time, 
having been satisfied that host-government authorities in the 
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cabinet of the Prime Minister 
in Brazzaville responded appropriately to our respective 
demarches, and, that the preponderence of evidence appeared 
to be weighted against Mounzeo and Mackosso.  The political 
attache of the French Embassy, Olivier duFour, charged that 
Global Witness and Sarah Wykes had lost all credibility in 
this affair and appeared poised to repeatedly discredit the 
Congo in an irresponsible and uninformed manner.  A two-page 
statement issued by the Congolese Catholic Episcopal 
Conference,  represented by Bishop Portella of Kinkala and 
Archbishop Milandou of Brazzaville, offered no new evidence 
in defense of Mounzeo and Mackosso, and called for their 
unconditional release, respect for the Universal Declaration 
of Human Rights, and freed 
om from any forms of harassment or reprisals against the pair 
or other human rights defenders.  Charge d'affaires will 
contact his colleague, Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Andres 
Carascosa Coso, currently on mission to Libreville, for a 
read-out of the situation, as the Catholic Church has 
provided financial support to RPDH and OCDH in recent years. 
 
 
KINSHASA 00000589  003 OF 003 
 
 
¶6.  (U)  Emboffs will continue to monitor this situation and 
report any significant developments to the Department. 
 
¶7.  (U)  Brazzaville Embassy Office - Biedlingmaier 
 
 
MEECE