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By Jim Coggins
 | | A Congolese refugee expresses her jubilation upon receiving aid. Photo courtesy of World Vision. |
CANADIAN Christian agencies and churches are sending aid to deal with the current humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and are urging Western governments to intervene in the situation.
A resurgence of violence that began in August has escalated dramatically in recent months, displacing an estimated 250,000 people in addition to the 1.2 million already displaced since 1996. The decade-long conflict has been the bloodiest since World War II, with the death toll now well over 5 million. As many as 40,000 women have been raped, and thousands of children have been abducted to serve as child soldiers.
Meeting immediate needs
Many Christian organizations are rushing to meet the immediate needs. World Vision, which has been working in the area since 1993, is distributing emergency supplies to more than 100,000 people and plans to reach as many as 400,000 people in the next 90 days. In addition to food, the help includes such basic assistance as plastic sheeting to cover the leaf shelters the refugees are building, which provide inadequate protection in the rainy season.
This immediate assistance is in addition to ongoing World Vision programs such as agricultural training and child protection programs, as well as a large-scale water and sanitation project funded by the Canadian International Development Agency. (Canadian donors to World Vision sponsor 21,625 children in the DRC, all of whom live in the south and west of the country and are not directly affected by the fighting.)
"It is one of the worst humanitarian situations in the world," said Anna Ridout, a member of the World Vision emergency response team, speaking to CC.com from a refugee camp in Goma.
In the camps, Ridout has encountered many women and children "traumatized by what they have seen," including a young girl who had lost her entire family and a 16-year-old girl caring for a baby whose mother had been killed. She has also been struck by the "amazing resilience" of children, who sometimes come to the camps too traumatized to speak and are later found laughing and playing in "child-friendly spaces" provided by World Vision. As hard as it is, "it's a privilege to be here," she said.
Development and Peace, the international development organization of the Roman Catholic Church in Canada, has already sent $50,000 to provide emergency relief (blankets, clothing, soap, plastic cups and spoons, buckets, water bottles and cooking pots) to 90,000 refugees.
Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), the relief and development agency of North American Mennonite denominations, is contributing $280,000 in aid and is working with the Canadian Foodgrains Bank and the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada to feed more than 20,000 displaced people in Congo's South Kivu province.
Call for peace
A wide range of groups are also calling on the Canadian government to become more involved in the area. These groups include World Vision, Development and Peace, Kairos: Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives and the United Church of Canada. The requested actions are as diverse as the problems in Congo.
The DRC is the third largest country in Africa with an area of a million square kilometres and a population of over 60 million. The government is based in Kinshasa, near the country's 40-kilometre-long outlet to the sea on Africa's west coast. The government has never exercised much control over the country's vast interior, which mostly consists of rainforest in the Congo River basin, sloping up to the highlands along the nation's eastern border.
While the country has long known violence and oppression, the current crisis began in 1996 when the Hutu-Tutsi tribal conflict spilled over DRC's eastern border from Rwanda and Burundi, as Hutu militias who had fled Rwanda began attacking Congolese Tutsis. The Hutu militias are now organized as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).
In retaliation, Tutsis in the DRC organized as well. They now operate as the National People's Defense Congress (CNDP) headed by Laurent Nkunda. The CNDP, with apparent support from the government of Rwanda, is fighting the FDLR. The civilian population, most of whom are neither Hutu nor Tutsi, are caught in between.
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The DRC government would like to expel both groups from its territory, but is unable to do so. A United Nations Observation Mission in Congo (MONUC) has been present since 2001 to try to bring order and protect the civilian population. Yet its 16,000 troops have been unable to resist the well-armed militias.
To further complicate the situation, other, unrelated militant groups, such as the Lord's Liberation Army from Uganda, also enter the territory to pillage and terrorize the local population.
In addition, the DRC's eastern highlands contain some of the richest mineral deposits in the world, including diamonds, copper and zinc. The region contains 80 percent of the world's coltan, a vital component in modern electronic devices.
These minerals are minded by a variety of international corporations, including some Canadian ones. There are widespread allegations that many of these companies are guilty of human rights abuses, including oppressive labour practices and using militias to drive local inhabitants off the land. The products and profits from these mining operations often flow through the militias and the countries which border the DRC rather than through the DRC. Congolese often complain that their mineral wealth is benefiting everyone but them.
The fighting was so intense between 1996 and 2003 that it brought in most of DRC's neighbours, including Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia and Angola. The current wave of violence has apparently been instigated by the CNDP, although it claims it is only acting in self-defence against the FDLR.
The danger is that the conflict could escalate as it did between 1996 and 2003 and "the whole east may catch fire," said Deo Namwira, an MCC international grants manager who is originally from eastern Congo, in a press release.
Because of the complex nature of the conflict, the solution must have several aspects, said John Lewis, a human rights program coordinator for Kairos. The first priority is to strengthen the United Force so that it can protect the civilian population.
"We just need peace," said Ridout. Meaningful development for the area cannot begin until the local people are free to go home and start farming again and sending their children to school, she added.
While the Canadian government will not likely be able to send troops, Lewis suggested, it could at least contribute money to an expanded UN force. It could also apply more pressure to the governments in the area. The problem, he said, is that the Canadian government seems to be giving less attention to Africa and to human rights issue generally.
It is also important, said Lewis, for the problem of the FDLR to be addressed. As long as these Hutus are not disarmed and repatriated to Rwanda or even settled in FRC, the Tutsi CNDP will have an excuse to keep fighting. Peace agreements have failed in the past because the FDLR has not been included in the negotiations.
To that end, MCC is providing $15,000 to a modest Church of Christ in Congo (ECC) effort to provide food and other necessities to about 320 militants and their families if they will agree to disarm and return to Rwanda.
A number of other agencies are also working on reconciliation and peace initiatives between ethnic groups in local communities.
Kairos is also urging the United Nations to put an end to the illegal mineral trading in the region, which fuels much of the conflict.
The greatest need
An estimated 94% of DRC's population are Christians, 55% Roman Catholic and 29% Protestant (including 62 denominations grouped under the ECC).
However, there are a considerable number of nominal Christians, and many combine Christianity with animistic beliefs, said Jamie Munday, holistic development coordinator for MBMS International. In spite of this, he added, the ECC sometimes makes surprisingly significant initiatives on its own, in both relief and development work and evangelism.
In the face of the enormously complex and longstanding problems in the DRC, he said the most important thing Canadians can do is pray.
Ridout said the same thing. She urged Canadians to give to relief efforts and to urge their government to work toward a political solution. However, she said, "the first thing is prayer."
November 20/2008
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