WASHINGTON – Congo is losing a generation to war over diamonds and other minerals in the country’s eastern regions, said the president of the nation’s bishops’ conference.
“We are losing a generation. That’s true,” Bishop Nicolas Djomo Lola of Tshumbe, Congo, told Catholic News Service June 4. “A lot of children have not gone to school because of that. It’s terrible.”
However, while peace is being sought for eastern Congo, Bishop Djomo said he prefers a nontraditional approach.
“We don’t think that negotiating directly with the rebels right now is something which is useful,” he said. “We are asking to negotiate also with the neighboring countries. Some of them are backing the rebels. It’s very important. The rebels are instrumented (supplied) by some countries.
” The bishop did not name those countries, but Rwanda and Uganda have denied international charges that they supported the rebels in eastern Congo. In the past, Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe have backed the government.
Bishop Djomo was in Washington as part of a tour of Western nations, during which he hoped to generate support for a peaceful resolution to the conflict, which began in 1996.
He told Catholic News Service the effects of the war are readily visible.
“We have 2 million displaced people. Two million people fled the villages without any possibility to cultivate (land). And the international community is not able to feed all of them. People in camps don’t have (enough) food,” he said.
“At the same time, the education system doesn’t work,” Bishop Djomo added. “Imagine the children in this area. They are not able to go to school. That’s terrible for us. For the last 15 years, women are raped and they are not able to be in security.”
Issues of human rights and poverty are connected to the war.
“The Catholic Church is questioning the government so that human rights will be respected, and we spoke to the government ... asking to making to make things more transparent,” Bishop Djomo said. “We have even met with the (Congolese) president over that. So we know that without respecting human rights, it’s very difficult to end the war, the instability.”
He added: “We need our military to be more respectful of human rights and the justice against the corruption. That is a very, very important issue for the church and we are working hard.”
Poverty, according to Bishop Djomo, is “a huge challenge. Fighting the armed groups, it’s absolutely necessary to work for development – to support development in that area, because poverty is dangerous. And it’s engendering the violence.”
From June 21, 2013 issue of Catholic San Francisco. - See more at: http://www.catholic-sf.org/ns.php?newsid=2&id=61536#sthash.GAwBnx2n.dpuf
No comments:
Post a Comment