Carta do UNHCR ao Kinshasa Office do UNHCR

KIB/181/2.1.C 27 May 1967 UNHCR Headquarters Kinshasa Office - IC: Carlos Lengema Fonseca. 1. Reference your cable 846 and pertinent memo of 19 May. 2. Your cable having been delivered to me on 14 May (Sunday), I wrote the same day to Mme Filanda, aunt of Carlos. The letter was returned to us on 25 May by the PTT, marked “Inconnu”. The reason for it (as we saw after receipt of your memo) was that the name of the c/o-person had been garbled in the cable text: it read “Mathumtaedolede” instead of “Mathumtu Pierre”. Having received your memo of 19 May on 22 May, we eventually concluded that “AMI” stood for “Angence Maritime Internationale”, (which proved correct), dispatched a second letter par porteur direct to AMI on 24 May, and the following day M. Marcel Tadinga, an elder half-brother of Carlos, came to our office on behalf of Mme Filanda (who did not feel well). 3. I collected the following information from M. Tadianga: a) Carlos Lengema Fonseca has been arrested at Lumbashi on 4 March by Mr Peterson, the GRAE security chief, was brought to the GRAE office in Kinshasa on 5 March and continues to be detained there. Carlos was badly treated by GRAE agents and his state of health is believed to be precarious. Some other persons, originally kept imprisoned together with Carlos, have since disappeared and are believed to have been killed by GRAE. b) The mother of Carlos, Mme Tshitenga Jeanne, is a Congolese national, a Basonge by tribe, some 55 years old, originates from Kabinda (Kasai Crientale) and is now,living at Mbuji-Mayi (some 22km south-west of Luluabourg. Tshitenga gave birth t three children, but not having been legally married: - - Tadianga Marcel, 1927, (the visitor) his father: a Congolese - Carlos Lengema Fonseca, 1943 his father: a Portuguese half-bred - Jean Marie Fonseca, 1947 (student at Lincoln University) his father: the above Portuguese half-bred All three children were born in Congo (RDC). The father of Carlos and Jean Marie, the Portuguese half-bred, is living in the Katanga. c) Carlos’ aunt, Mme Filanda, already back in March went to the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and to the sureté Nationale, requesting the release of Carlos from the GRAE prison, on the grounds the he was a CONGOLESE national, - since he had a Congolese mother who had never been legally married to his father, the Portuguese half- bred. d) M Tadianga, alerted by Carlos’ aunt and Carlos’ mother, rushed to the Kinshasa from Mbuji-Mayi on 13 May. He also called on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs requesting them to arrange for the immediate release of Carlos by Virtue of his being a Congolese National. He has last visited Foreign Affairs on 24 May when he spoke to the Assistant of the Ministry’s Secretary General, M Shekembo. The latter told him that Carlos’ dossier had now been examined by the Secretary General who had added his observations on the case, namely to the effect that the boy should be released - being a Congolese national, and that the dossier was now being transferred to the Political Affairs Section for a final decision. e) M Tadianga will call on Foreign Affairs again the next days, keeping me informed. “Je reste sur place jusqu’à la libération de mon frère!” f) The accusations brought forward by Mr Peterson (GRAE) against Carlos are but vaguely known. M Tadianga has heard Mr. Peterson were suspecting Carlos to have been involved in an alleged plot against Roberto Holden (President of GRAE), and also to be a member or sympathizer of the MPLA (GRAE’s rival organization in Brazza). M Tadianga thinks this was all unfounded, and the most likely motive for Carlos’ arrest was that the GRAE, obviously considered him an Angolan, was taking revenge because Carlos was not collaborating with the GRAE. 5. In the light of the above information I have come to abstain, at the moment, from making a representation with the Congolese government and await first the outcome of M Tadianga’s demarches. (I felt this was tenable also in the light of the tenor of your cable). I would, however, consider to intervene should the release not come about in the near future. I would then, i.a., inquire from the Congolese authorities whether or not Carlos is being considered a Congolese national. In the affirmative it is basically up/-the /-to Congolese authorities to obtain his release, while in the negative HCR action would definitely be called for. 6. This memo is copied to the B.O. New York, kindly requesting them to ascertain what kind of Travel Document Jean Marie possesses. cc: B.O. New York P.S.: an extra copy is being sent to Geneva by next pouch.