Difference between revisions of "Jérôme Bamba"
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[[Category:Opponents of Mobutu|Bamba, Jérôme]] | [[Category:Opponents of Mobutu|Bamba, Jérôme]] | ||
| + | [[Category:Christians|Bamba, Jérôme]] | ||
Latest revision as of 14:30, 14 February 2007
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| Born | October 7, 1964 Banana, Zaire |
| Died | January 30, 2007 Kinshasa, Zaire (heart attack) |
| Spouse | Jeanette Bamba |
| Profession | Newspaper editor-in-chief |
| Employer | Elima |
| Languages spoken | Lingala, French, Kikongo |
| Religion | Church of Christ in Zaire |
Biography
Jérôme Bamba (October 7, 1964 — January 30, 2007) was the controversial editor-in-chief of the Kinshasa daily Elima, a newspaper famous (or infamous, depending on one's perspective) for its stinging denunciations of the Mobutu government, his mismanagement of the economy, and the perilous state of human rights in Zaire. A persistent, outspoken critic of the President, Bamba was heralded by his supporters as a man of courage and reviled by his detractors as a "subversive" and a "renegade of the revolution." Bamba, for his part, explicitly dissociated himself with those who sought change through non-democratic, violent means, and expressed his support for reform through peaceful, law-abiding methods. He was a fervid supporter of Étienne Tshisekedi and the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (of which he was a member, even after it was banned again following the Great Central African War); for this, he was often detained, harassed, and on occasion beaten and threatened with death. For their own safety, his wife and children were sent to Dar es Salaam. The final straw for Mobutu was Bamba's hard-hitting editorial, "A Nation in the Throes of Chaos: The Human Cost of Living in Mobutu's Zaire", which caused severe embarrassment for the nation abroad by attracting criticism from democratic nations, most notably Ariddia. Just days after the editorial was published, Bamba was found dead of (supposedly) a heart attack. It is widely believed that SNIP assassinated him, possibly under direct orders from the Terminator himself.
