As decribed in the Finnish text last week, I have been attending World Council of Churches Living Letters Visit to the Decmocratic Republic of Congo. After three days of visiting North and South Kivu in the Eastern parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), we have continued our trip to Kinshasa, the capital of DRC. One part of the Living Letter visit is therefore over. Being a Living Letter means that eventually we are returning back our homes and giving testimony on different levels on what we have seen. I want to report few things already now as they are fresh in my memory. Giving testimony from this trip means to state what war is causing and what is causing war in the DRC. In order to make analysis on all of that, there are few issues I want to take a closer look.
I had prepared myself to my visit in the Eastern DRC by reading different reports on the situation. Those reports have been produced by think-tanks like International Crisis Group or International Center for Transitional Justice. They gave me quite a good picture of the political situation of the country. Even though the situation seemed to be very complex, there were few issues which were clear and at the same time they were very striking: 1) number of rapes committed in the area as a weapon of war; 2) number of people who have lost their homes and are living in camps for Internally Displaced People (IDP Camps) or at other people’s homes as they have no other place to stay in; and 3) lack of support from the international community to people in DRC. After visiting Bukavu and Goma it is very easy to say that everything mentioned in the reports reflect the truth. The situation seems to be even worse than the picture you get from the reports. And this is striking for me.
Firstly, rape is not a strong word enough to describe what women are experiencing in Eastern parts of DRC. A rape is always a Human Rights violation, but what we heard and saw in Panzi Hospital and in CELPA Heath Center (both near Bukavu) and what is happening all over in South and North Kivu is brutalization of a human body. It is happening over and over again without an end at sight and the goal seems to be extermination of a whole generation living there. The whole society is suffering even though it is the women and girls who are being attacked.
So, this is one and the most striking thing which is happening in Democratic Republic of Congo and it is caused by the war. Therefore, the clear message from the churches and people we met in South and North Kivu was that all the efforts have to be made to stop the war and this brutalization. The solidarity for the society is important, but it doesn’t remove the very fact that women and girls are being brutalized and the whole society is about to fall.
Another problem caused by war is that people are forced to leave their homes. They are arriving in big towns like Bukavu and Goma with nothing to bring with them. We saw six families living under the same roof in a tiny one-room-house in Bukavu and we met 14-year-old girl who has been living in a camp near Goma the last two years without an end at sight and without any idea how her future might look like. Even though they are living under extremely difficult circumstances, people say that food or shelter is not the primary thing they need. The primary thing is the peace. If there were peace, it would be everything they need. But as the war goes on, the situation of people remains very difficult, they have to flee from their homes and the population of those cities continues to grow. The population in Bukavu has tripled within a short period of time as people are fleeing from their homes all over South Kivu.
If those are the problems caused by the war, what is causing the war? This is very difficult to answer as the situation seems to be very complex. One of the pastors in Bukavu reminded us about an African proverb: “If you see a dog in a tree, you start to think immediately, who put the dog there”. But can we answer to this question? Who put the dog there and perhaps even more importantly: who could take the dog down? There might be many answers to the question, but I have to answer from a Northern perspective.
One of the reasons for continued war is the lack of support on the one side and lack of pressure on another side from the international community in the situation. Many times it is being said that rich countries involve themselves only to conflicts where they have something to gain from. This is the situation in the Middle East, Iraq and other places where oil can be thrilled. But if nature resources are the reason for intervening, why on earth European and North American countries are not more concerned what happens every day in DRC? I was asking this question while visiting churches and organizations in Eastern Congo and received at least two answers: firstly, there is no clear good guy/ bad guy –situation (no axis of evil so to speak). For Europeans the situations seems like there are different groups who are fighting against each other and who all commit the crimes. The second answer I received was that peace in DRC would affect huge number of industries in Western and Northern hemisphere. DRC is so rich with natural resources including gold, diamonds, copper, coltan etc. and companies using those products are receiving their end product very easily and cheaper now than what would be the case if there were peace in DRC. Mobile companies, who are using coltan in their mobiles (and most of the coltan worldwide comes from DRC) don’t either want to know or want to tell the customers where the material comes from and how it has been mined. Whatever the reason is, there was a great plea from churches we visited that international community should advocate for people in DRC in different arenas.
It was the US President Barack Obama who said few days ago in Ghana while visiting sub-Saharan Africa for the first time in his current post as president that Africa should take a lead in its own problems. Only then other continents can help Africa and its countries. What we have seen during our visits is that there is a clear will of Congolese people to end the war. That has been a clear message given to us. And it is a message we have to convey to our own countries. It is a message, we have to convey to international community including the UN, our governments and regular people in our countries buying mobile phones. We have to bring forward what the war is causing: brutalization of women, girls and the whole society as well as inhuman living conditions to those fleeing from their homes. And no matter how the effects for the Northern hemisphere would be, we have to act for the peace in DRC. Because what is happening here is no way acceptable.
Avainsanat: KMN, kohtaamisia
