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November 19, 2008

Africa religious leaders say Congo conflict is over resources

by Fredrick Nzwili
Ecumenical News International

ENTEBBE, Uganda — African religious leaders meeting in Uganda have been told that a crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo in which civilians are suffering the greatest atrocities has been triggered by a conflict over natural resources.

“Is it not correct to say that while this war is raging, the mineral resources are being taken out of the country for the benefit of others other than the citizens of the DRC?” said the Rev. Ishmael Noko, a Zimbabwean who is general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation, in an address to a Nov. 10-13 meeting of the Inter-Faith Action for Peace in Africa, in Entebbe, near the Ugandan capital, Kampala.

IFAPA, made up of representatives of seven main faith traditions, was founded at summit of religious leaders in Johannesburg in 2002.

Fighting between militia loyal to renegade Congolese general Laurent Nkunda and government forces has intensified in the mineral rich Kivu region near Rwanda. Humanitarian agencies say nearly 200,000 displaced people are sheltering near the town of Goma, while hundreds of others in the bush face the risk of cholera and measles.

Noko said the conflict seemed intended to destabilize the DRC to allow access to its mineral resources by outside forces.

Retired Ugandan Anglican bishop, Macleord Baker Ochola II, told the gathering on Nov. 10: “The work of the Church is to be where there are problems. If we want to lead, we must be there in DRC. We need to be present and take the voice of God to the people who are suffering.”

Separately, a delegation of church leaders from Burundi, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo met DRC President Joseph Kabila on Nov. 11, before travelling in the coming weeks to Kigali to meet Rwanda’s president, Paul Kagame.

“It is impossible for us to preach the love of God in Jesus Christ while keeping silent in the face of the effects of such a serious humanitarian disaster as the suffering of children fleeing into the bush with or without their parents, women atrociously raped, abused and sometimes buried alive, old people and innocent civilians cowardly killed, and the malicious destruction of property and community life,” the ecumenical delegation led by Burundi’s Anglican archbishop, Bernard Ntahoturi, said in a statement to the DRC president.

Human right groups have accused the rebels as well as the DRC army of using rape as a weapon of war. “Rape in DRC is an international crisis. You need to be there to see how bad it is,” Joyce Nima of the Uganda Joint Christian Council, told the IFAPA meeting in Entebbe.