Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Kinshasa ( Fides Service)- “A human catastrophe” this is how Bishop Fulgence Muteba of Kilwa-Kasenga diocese describes the situation in the south east region of Democratic Congo southern Katanga in a recent press statement. “Reports have been sent to state and humanitarian institutions to inform national and international communities of the tragedy which has befallen people in Mitwaba, Pweto and Malemba” the Bishop writes. “These areas are the scene of repeated fighting between the army and local Mai-Mai warriors. Barricaded in the forest these men cause terror, desolation and death among the people forcing them to flee their homes”.
“Initially a movement of resistance against foreign invaders and their foreign accomplices, the Mai-Mai phenomenon, at least in Katanga is now an organisation whose goals are ambiguous.
The consequences for the people in this situation are tragic: “Three parishes in the diocese of Kilwa-Kasenga, Mitwaba, Dubie and Pweto have suffered from this humanitarian catastrophe for years. Entire villages are burned down, human rights trampled on. Our people are subject to killings raping, robberies and all sorts of other violence. Thousands of displaced men women and children in these three parishes live in sub-human conditions and there are few international humanitarian agencies to help them”.
Bishop Muteba gives the figures of the catastrophe: “In Dubie parish at least 15,500 are living in makeshift dwellings, in Mitwaba 8,000 are in the same condition. Whereas Pweto parish is sheltering people from a number of villages attacked or torched by Mai-Mai. Further away in the centre and south of the diocese Kilwa and Kasomeno parish offers shelter to thousands of displaced persons forgotten by all and living in pitiful conditions after registering with humanitarian services unable to return to the area”.
Unfortunately the government’s military solution “was not a solution”, because, the Bishop writes, “the government army is another aspect of this tragedy: everyone knows what unpaid troops will do. So our people are caught betweeen the devil and the deep blue sea. On the one hand they pay the price of the government army’s presence and on the other they are subject to violence by the Mai-Mai”. Moreover “while other regions of eastern Congo, Ituri and South Kivu are in the spotlight, this tragedy of the people in the north of Kilwa-Kasenga diocese continues to go unseen”.
“The military solution has shown its limits. On behalf of these suffering people and as Shepherd of the people of God in Kilwa-Kasenga, I cry out to our national authorities, the United Nations Organisation, to human rights activists, to the media and to all men and women of goodwill: help us! Like Ituri and like north and south Kivu, we too are longing for peace. Please help us,!” (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 15/9/2005 righe 40 parole 484)
