Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Kinshasa (Agenzia Fides) – As the participants of the Special Assembly for Africa of the Synod of Bishops discuss Peace and Reconciliation in Africa, from the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) recent testimonies are heard, on the violence suffered by the Congolese people at the hands of various guerrilla groups, especially the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). It is a group of Acholi fighters, natives of northern Uganda, who since 2005 have claimed the Garamba Forest (in the eastern province of northeastern DRC, on the border with Sudan, as their headquarters. At the beginning, the LRA soldiers, disgracefully infamous for their atrocities committed against civilians and kidnapping children and adolescents forced to join their ranks of war, were engaged in agriculture, doing business with the local Congolese people with rice, manioc and gold, in exchange for salt, batteries, and clothing.
After the failure of peace talks sponsored by South Sudan, between Joseph Kony (LRA leader) and the Ugandan government, the LRA abandoned Garamba and entered central Congo, the Central African Republic, and Chad. In November 2008, Operation Lightning Thunder, involving the armies of Uganda, the DRC, and Sudan, was carried out with the objective of destroying the LRA once and for all. The three-party operation was supported by the United States, which provided logistic support and information gathered from satellite imagery. “It was as though they had found an anthill. The great camps of the Garamba, with their over 300 soldiers, were all dispersed and small groups ran in every direction, taking with them their child-soldiers and slaves,” a Combonian missionary told journalist Colette Braeckman, from the Belgian journal “Le Soir.” The journalist, one of the major experts on the Congolese situation, gathered ghastly testimonies from the children and young men who managed to flee the LRA. They had been forced to walk in a long procession from eastern Congo to South Sudan, then to Central Africa, under the constant threat of getting caught in the crossfire with the soldiers who had taken them hostage. They received only one meal per day, in the evening, so they did not have the strength to flee during the day and were treated as beasts of burden by their overseers.
The Ugandan military operations extended to the Central African Republic. The soldiers carried out raids to try and free the young captives, with some success. However, the presence of foreign troops, with the aim of fighting the LRA and the Democratic Forces of the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR, that operate more in the south, in North and South Kivu), also have other less noble intentions. As Fr. Sergio, a Combonian missionary, tells Braeckman, “you cannot forget the oil, the timber, the miners, these mountains where they have recently found nickel in a pure form.” The natural resources of Congo are the real cause for the Congolese war. As the Congolese journal “Le Potentiel,” writes, “the Democratic Republic of Congo has still not emerged from the tunnel. After the economic war over the illegal funding of business involving diamonds, gold, cassiterite, timber...now is the time for petroleum and, above all, nickel. In the eastern part of the DRC, in the Ituri, nickel has recently been discovered in a pure state. This mineral is already on high demand. This explains the 'resistance' to peace, this hesitation in stopping the criminals of the LRA, the famous Lord's Resistance Army formed by Ugandan rebels under the leadership of warhead Joseph Kony.”
In his intervention in the Synod, Bishop Nicholas Djomo Lola of Tshumbe, President of the Bishops' Conference of the Democratic Republic of Congo, condemned “the wars and the violence imposed on the Democratic Republic of Congo. We should unveil the lies and deception used by predators and those who are causing these wars. Ethnic diversity is used as a pretext for exploiting natural resources” (see Fides 9/10/2009). (LM) (Agenzia Fides 15/10/2009)
