However, the problem with Mr Jean De Dieu Kourissa MP
and others like him within the ruling party is their collective fear to lose
their privileges coupled with the fear of reprisals. When Jean De Dieu Kourissa MP heard that, I
wanted to have a television station that will give balanced news and views on
national and international issues, he cringed. He was afraid of the consequences that I will
sustain from the ruling party of which he was an MP. For Mr Jean De Dieu Kourissa MP knew that, the
ruling party seldom likes the truth and they abhor any professional journalist
who won’t sing their praise. It was a tough time for. And I had special debate
with Mr Jean De Dieu Kourissa MP on the editorial line that I wanted to put in
place, if they wanted me to work for them. I told them that, the survival of
MNTV/MN Radio lies in being professional and objective. Anything short of those
latter mentioned, no Congolese will ever bother to listen to them or watch
their radio or television, because they know it is another attempt, for the
ruling family to control the country media wise as they are already doing
politically and economically.
I added: the national television and radio are already
making a lot of propaganda for President Denis Sassou Nguesso and there is no
place for real news or any kind of contradictory news or debates. In
addition: you or your family already has
TOP TV, which belongs to Claudia Leboumba Sassou Nguesso, the daughter of the
president. Another media from the elder brother of the president with the aim
to promote the ruling family and the policies of the government will only
generate or exacerbate a national family fatigue or rejection. However, if your
media are professionally balanced or objective, I told them, people will give
an ear your radio or watch your television station and more, there are greater
chances that, after this regime ends, which is a likely scenario from my
observations, MNCOM might survive. Mrs. Lydie Kourissa quibbled when I said
that, should the regime ends, MNCOM might outlive it. She asked: so you want
our regime to end? I replied: it is a democracy, I suppose. And if it is really
one, then it has a life span that is terminal and not everlasting. Then I also
told them, that, I had my own personal and professional reputation to preserve.
If they wanted me to work for them, they should allow me a free hand in the
editorial policy and a greater autonomy in the management of MNTV/MN Radio.
Mrs. Lydie Kourissa was not willing or not satisfied. She was afraid, for she knew the way I was
working at Telesud. In other words, Mrs. Kourissa knew me better than any
member of the ruling family. She knew that, I said openly what I thought and
abhorred injustices and dictatorship. Hence she feared my request for a free
hand in the editorial policy of MNTV/MN Radio. But she had another sledge
hammer above her head: her love not for political power, but more her uncle of
a president and also her husband, For the period when her uncle left or lost political
power to Professor Pascal Lissouba was to her a very traumatic moment. This was
so because she saw how her uncle suffered, but always put up a brave democratic
face for the cameras when he was out. I discovered
that what Denis Sassou Nguesso wrote in his book: Le Manguier, le Fleuve et la
souris in 1997, was the greatest political lies of all times in Congolese post
independence history. It was his Mien Kampf. He deceived Congolese or took them
for idiots, the same way as did Adolf Hitler.
The real Denis Sassou Nguesso was in the biography written
by journalist, Andre Soussan, wherein he prepares the ground to make people
think he(Denis Sassou Nguesso) was born to rule, since as he claims, he was chosen by clan elders at
the expense of his older brothers to be initiated into the tribal cult in their
village of Edou. My conversations with Mrs. Lydie Hortense Kourissa, who seems
to love and respect her uncle perhaps more than her biological father, Maurice
Nguesso was not only edifying, but more revealing. It was not as though she was
spilling the bin, but it showed one thing, the love and profound admiration of
a niece to her uncle of a president, chosen by God to rule Congo. She once told
me that, there is a tree at the centre of the school where her uncle studied in
the Niari region of Congo, to be précised in Mbonda, where as young as he was,
he carved on the trunk a tree the word: Prince. Then, she asked me: was that
not a spiritual inspiration from God as the bible writings on the wall? Since Mrs.
Lydie H. Kourissa is a born again Christian, she thinks honestly that, God had
chosen long ago her uncle to govern Congo.
No comments:
Post a Comment