CAT/C/23/D/118/1998 page 5 been at liberty to contact his family with a view to recovering his MPR membership card. That said, even had the author been a member of the MPR, that would not constitute grounds for considering that the risk of torture had been sufficiently established. The former members of the MPR in the DRC number hundreds of thousands, and the Government has taken no general measures of persecution against them. Moreover, the author has been unable to provide detailed information on the duties he performed for the MPR. In his communication, he has not even deemed fit to provide any information on the subject. 4.8 In the light of the foregoing considerations, the State party concludes that there is nothing to indicate the existence of serious grounds for fearing that the author would personally risk being exposed to torture upon returning to the DRC. The author’s comments 5.1 By letter of 15 July 1999, the author informed the Committee that he was in custody pending his return to the DRC. He reverts to the subject of the Swiss authorities’ interpretation as to the origin of the threat to himself in his country. According to the CRA, he ought to have had no fear of persecution, since on 10 May 1997 Kabila’s forces had not yet entered Kinshasa. In fact, by 10 May 1997 a number of infiltrators had already reached the capital, although officially the advance guard did not arrive until 17 May. It was soldiers of the AFDL who interrogated the author. There could be no question of his confusing them with soldiers belonging to the armed forces of President Mobutu, who held no fears for him as they knew him. 5.2 The author argues that it is now impossible for him to provide proof of his political activities. As to his MPR membership card, he points out that if communications between the DRC and Switzerland are supposed to be functioning perfectly, which is far from likely given the state of the postal service in Kinshasa, that can only have come about very recently. He had no news of his family for months following his arrival in Switzerland precisely because of the communication problems. He eventually learned through a letter from his mother that she had left Kinshasa some nine months previously to go with his brothers to Brazzaville, owing to the difficulties she had had in Kinshasa. She informed him that, following his departure from the country, his father had been arrested, interrogated and beaten in an effort to make him reveal the author’s whereabouts. The letter had remained at his residence in La Chaux-de-Fonds. 5.3 The author did in fact describe in his application for asylum the work he did for the MPR. He had been responsible for mobilizing people at the airport in connection with all travel undertaken by President Mobutu. Consequently he was well known, particularly in Kinshasa. That was the reason for his continuing fear that he would be at risk of recognition and arrest if he returned to the DRC. 5.4 The author contends that the many former employees of President Mobutu who remain in the country without problems have preserved their freedom through payments and bribery. He states that two compatriots whom he met in Switzerland, and whose names he supplies, were arrested on their return to the DRC and imprisoned at Makala.