Congo bishops call for reconciliation

More than two million people have died in fighting in the Congo, reports Antoine Lokongo
CONGOLESE BISHOPS have called on the UN Security Council, the European Union and the International Court of Justice to establish a South African-style truth and reconciliation commission, for a lasting peace in Africa's Great Lakes Region.
Meeting in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the 11strong permanent Committee of the Congolese National Episcopal Conference (CENC), issued a statement saying that no reconciliation was possible in central Africa without the denouncement of killings, injustices and suffering inflicted on the people of Congo.
The bishops were repeating an earlier call for the unconditional withdrawal of troops from Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi from Congolese territory, and to pave the way for dialogue and the process of forgiveness.
They said that the proposed truth commission should decide who was responsible for massacres carried out against the civilian population and what compensation could be offered to the Congolese people.
The bishops said: "More than 2,300,000 Congolese have been massacred by Rwandan. Ugandan and Burundian troops. Hundreds more die each day as a result of this war.
"What remains of Congo's infrastructure has now been destroyed or transferred to Uganda. Rwanda and Burundi with the blessing of well-known superpowers and with total impunity.
"The looting of Congo's natural and mineral resources by all parties involved in the war is still going on. Those countries who have no minerals under their soil have now become important exporters of diamonds, gold and other highly sought after minerals simply because they find themselves in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
"'Fhe truth and reconciliation commission will have the role of bringing all the sides to the purification of memories tarnished by injustice suffered, the humiliation inflicted and the ostentation of arrogance."
The bishops underlined the need for a genuine dialogue among the Congolese people in order to revitalise the process of democratisation, within the framework of the peace accord signed by all the warring parties on July 11, 1998 in the Zambian capital Lusaka.
The prelates also paid tribute to the late Archbishop Emmanuel Kataliko of Bukavu, south Kivu, and deputy chairman of the bishops conference, who died last October while in Rome, attending the meeting of the Symposium of Bishops Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM).
The bishops recalled his courage in denouncing the "massacres, killings and the looting of Congo's natural and mineral resources by foreign powers with the complicity of some Congolese themselves," which led to the Archbishop's exclusion from his own diocese by the Rwandan-backed RCD Congolese rebel movement.
"Archbishop Emmanuel Kataliko was entirely consecrated to the cause of the Gospel and led an exemplary life of evangelical humility.
"His dedication to the defence of human dignity and the promotion of reconciliation and peace gavehope to our nation," the bishops said.
The bishops' meeting, led by Cardinal Frederick Etsou Nzabi Bamungwabi, Archbishop of Kinshasa and chairman of the CNEC, was the first since the country's President Laurent Desire Kabila was assassinated on January 16.
Meanwhile, Sr Antoinette Fan, a Congolese Ursuline nun, faces charges of trea son a crime punishable by death — for her alleged role in the assassination of the Congolese leader.
A report by the Catholic news agency Fides last week said Sr Fan i had been detained for questioning by the commission of inquiry set up by current President Joseph Kabila into the murder of his father.
Sr Fan, who works with the inmates of Likasi prison, in the southern Katanga province, was escorted by security agents to the capital Kinshasa last week and is being interrogated by military judges as part of the investigation into Kabila's death.
Sr Fan i was previously arrested and released in December 1999, accused of serving as a go-between for political prisoners jailed for destabilising the late President Kabila's rule.