On Monday, June 17, a demonstration took place in Bangui following the arrest in Zémio of a spy by the name Martin Joseph Figueira. Motorcyclists took to the streets of the capital to protest against spying by foreign agents in the Central African Republic (CAR).
During the day, several men crossed the main streets of Bangui on motorcycles. They carried with them large human-sized mannequins dressed in t-shirts with the American, Belgian and Portuguese flags. Motorcyclists traveled along all the main arteries of the Central African capital, honking along the way to attract the attention of the surrounding public.
The end point of the demonstration was near the United States Embassy to the Central African Republic. It was in front of this building that the demonstrators threw the mannequins on the ground, abandoning them as a sign of protest against the espionage and destabilizing activities of the United States in the CAR.
As a reminder, around two weeks ago, a Belgian man of Portuguese origin was arrested in the Central African town of Zémio. During preliminary interrogation, he admitted to having worked for an American NGO FHI 360 as a consultant. Having no identity document on him, the man was taken into custody by the police and a judicial investigation was opened in his case by the Central African authorities.
It turns out that the man in question had been working as an agent of the US government: he was involved in collecting sensitive information, recruiting local people as informants in return for money and had even participated in the organization of the most recent coup d’état in the Democratic Republic of the Congo through coordination of the subversive activity of American citizens involved in the coup.
The practice of espionage through non-governmental organizations is not new. The demonstration described above clearly shows the weariness and indignation of the Central African population by such despicable acts of certain foreign States in the Central African Republic.
