2009 Annual Report

2009 Africa Grantee Spotlight:
Voice of the Voiceless (Voix des Sans Voix, VSV)

Dolly Ibefo (center), Deputy Director of VSV, meeting with democracy activists in the DRC.

The NED Africa program has grown steadily over the past two decades, but only a few groups currently have relationships with NED reaching back to the earliest years of Africa’s democratic revolution. One of the oldest of these is the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) -based Voice of the Voiceless (Voix des Sans Voix, VSV), a NED partner since 1991.

Founded clandestinely in 1983 when civil society organizations were banned under the Mobutu dictatorship, VSV has survived despite repeated threats and attacks, which continue to this day. VSV still produces some of the hardest-hitting and most widely-read local reports documenting human rights abuses in the DRC, and has also mentored many other human rights groups, not only in the DRC, but increasingly throughout the Congo River basin.

This powerful combination of reporting and mentorship was put to the test in 2008 when the national army and police attacked Bundu dia Kongo, a politico-religious group in the western province of Bas Congo that had come to represent the frustrations of many disenfranchised Congolese. VSV soon arrived at the scene, producing the first comprehensive report on the violence.

Realizing that such work would be more effective in coalition with other civil society organizations, VSV organized a regional conference with NED funding to share the experiences of human rights defenders from Angola, the Republic of the Congo, and the DRC. For many activists, especially in Angola, this was the first such regional meeting, and led to the creation of an action-alert network of members.

The network soon proved itself. The plight of refugees flowing across the border between the DRC and Angola was an initial concern. Then, in March 2009, the VSV director and deputy director, Floribert Chebeya and Dolly Ibefo, were arrested and arbitrarily detained incommunicado after holding a press conference criticizing the government. Members of the action-alert network and several other international and national organizations quickly responded. Thanks to these efforts, Floribert and Dolly were released after three days. Later in the year, authorities arrested the leaders of two other Congolese NED partners, Golden Misabiko of ASADHO and Robert Ilungi Numbi of Les Amis de Nelson Mandela. Again, the network was called into action to secure their release.

A second regional conference was held in Brazzaville in November 2009, reinforcing the network and focusing on dialogue with government authorities. As the pressure on human rights defenders grows throughout Africa, such cross-border cooperation will be vital for the future of Africa’s human rights movement.