Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Bukavu (Agenzia Fides) – "Instability in North and South Kivu continues and the signs we are seeing are not reassuring," Fides was recently told by a missionary from Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu (eastern Democratic Republic of Congo). Names are withheld for security reasons.
In North Kivu, in the Lubero area, the population is mourning the killing of Father Christian Mbusa Bakulene (see Fides 9 and 10 November 2010). The inhabitants of the area accuse the soldiers of the Congolese armed forces (many of whom are former rebels of the National Congress for the Defence of the People) of preying on civilians. "Even in South Kivu, in recent days, there have been protests against the continued work of operation “Amani Leo” being conducted by the Congolese and Rwandan armies against the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda," says the missionary.
According to press reports, Kivu has a concentration of certain groups who oppose both the government of Rwanda and that of Burundi and have formed an informal alliance. To counter these movements, Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi, recently held a meeting of heads of intelligence of the DRC, Rwanda, and Burundi. Local observers have pointed to the significant absence of an intelligence representative from Uganda, a confirmation of a cooling-off of relations between Kigali and Kampala.
The meeting in Bujumbura could mean an intensification of military activities in Kivu, as confirmed by the source of Fides: "There are growing rumors of a new joint military operation between the Congolese and the Rwandan armies in the area."
Kivu (North and South) is rich in natural resources that are essential to the more advanced economies (including the famous coltan used in the electronics industry). Among these is pure methane, which is located at the bottom of Lake Kivu. This resource, however, represents a serious environmental threat, for fear that it might provoke a violent release of carbon dioxide (dissolved in high concentrations in the lake), 300 times more powerful than that which occurred August 21, 1986 below Lake Nysos in Cameroon, which caused 1,800 deaths from suffocation.
The existing plans to extract methane from the lake bottom, for now, have not been implemented. "The population is poorly informed of this risk. On the other hand, they have other things to think about and the authorities do nothing to warn them. The manifestations in the ecosystem, after all, are a mirror image of what man himself is provoking in this region," concludes the missionary. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 11/11/2010)
