|
|
From Fides ServiceDec. 12, 2010
General indifference to the continuing violence in the east of the Congo
“The tragedy in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo
(DRC) continues, while the international community assists helplessly,
indifferently, passively, or even knowingly,” said the newsletter sent to Fides
by the “Peace Network for the Congo”, promoted by missionaries.
“Murders, rapes, armed attacks and looting are part of a long list of crimes
perpetrated against a defenceless and exhausted civilian population. They are
the evil consequences of shady arms trafficking and the illegal exploitation of
mineral resources,” accuse missionaries. Recently Bishop Mélchisédech Sikuli
Paluku of Butembo-Beni, together with all the local clergy complained that in
North Kivu, “there is a genocide in the making”.
“We know that in the West politics is conditioned by the interests of finance
and economics. For this reason, the international community, who are the
beneficiaries of the mineral resources from the DRC, fear a clash with the
multinationals, the real holders of power and silent in the face of the
Congolese tragedy. It is true that, internationally, some initial proposals are
being drafted to defeat the illegal trade of natural resources. In this sense,
the U.S. Congress has passed a law to prevent imports of minerals supplied by
armed groups, requiring U.S. multinationals to establish the source of the
minerals in the DRC. This is a small step forward, but it is just the
beginning,” says the Peace Network for the Congo.
The illegal exploitation of mineral resources also has, unfortunately, local
accomplices: armed groups and Congolese military officers and politicians who
easily allow themselves to be corrupted by foreign multinationals, in view of
personal enrichment at the expense of the common good of the entire population.
On 26 November a round table discussion entitled “Remove the veil of silence
about the Congo. The massacres in the DRC and the plundering of resources in the
recent UN report” was held in Parma. This is a report of about six hundred
pages, by the UN High Commission for Human Rights, officially published on 1
October 2010, entitled “Report of the Mapping Project on the most serious
violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, committed between
March 1993 and June 2003 in the territory of the Democratic Republic of Congo”.
The roundtable was sponsored by the Peace Network in the Congo, by the
Department of Political and Social Studies and by the School of Journalism and
Publishing Culture at the University of Parma. Among the speakers was Mathilde
Muhindo Mwamini, former National Deputy of the Congo, committed to supporting
women in Bukavu, in the province of South Kivu, which led to the testimony of
the extreme plight of women in eastern DRC, targets of war violence, subject to
rapes and abuses of every kind, inflicted to humiliate an entire people and
destroy the future.
