Félix Tshisekedi signed a presidential decree, read out on national television on Tuesday, granting a presidential pardon to the three Americans sentenced to death, following the failed coup of May 19, 2024. The decision comes as the US President’s senior advisor on African affairs, Massad Boulos, is due to arrive in Kinshasa on April 3.
After the misadventure of Congressman Ronny Jackson (wrongly presented on March 16 as Donald Trump’s emissary during his meeting with Félix Tshisekedi), the communication team of the Congolese presidential can say it without fear: an emissary of President Donald Trump will be received by Félix Tshisekedi on April 3 at the Cité de l’Union Africaine. The emissary is Massad Boulos, father of Donald Trump’s son-in-law, who was recently appointed the President’s Senior Advisor on Africa, and who plays the same role for Arab countries and the Middle East.
According to a confirmation from the US State Department, Massad Boulos’s first official trip to Africa will take him to the DRC, Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda. The first leg of his journey begins on April 3 in the DRC, where he will meet Congolese officials, starting with President Félix Tshisekedi. On the agenda: “Advancing efforts toward lasting peace” in the eastern DRC, and “promoting U.S. private sector investment in the region”.
In recent weeks, the Congolese government has been wooing companies to invest in its rich mining quarries. A presence which Kinshasa hopes will be a guarantee of lasting peace in the region, where the Rwandan-backed M23 rebels have seized swathes of North and South Kivu, including the capital cities of Goma and Bukavu.
Was the arrival of Massad Boulos a factor in Félix Tshisekedi’s decision to pardon the three Americans condemned to death? Marcel Malanga Malu, Taylor Christa Thomson and Zalman Polun, the three American subjects condemned to death in the failed coup of May 19, 2024, were granted commutation of their sentences on Monday. The death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. And according to diplomatic sources, Donald Trump’s emissary is set to ask the Congolese head of state for more: their extradition and transfer to American justice. Kinshasa may well agree, in the hope of getting a little closer to Washington, which so far seems reluctant to encourage its companies to position themselves in Congolese mines.
Infos.cd
