Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Kinshasa (Agenzia Fides) - "What will happen now? The risk is the impediment, using the hard way, of tomorrow’s rally at the Stadium of the Martyrs, the risk is other deaths, which will be added to the dozens killed in these past weeks by the army and police. The risk is that the whole Country inflames" It is the dramatic appeal by the "Peace Network for Congo " sent to Fides. After December 20, 2011, Joseph Kabila swore in as Head of State, the Democratic Republic of Congo lives with tension waiting for Etienne Tshsekedi to appoint himself as Head of State, scheduled for tomorrow, Friday 23 December, at the Stadium of the Martyrs in Kinshasa. Tshsekedi declared himself President after rejecting the election results held November 28 presented by the Independent Electoral Commission and then validated by the Supreme Court.
"After the vote, Tshisekedi did not make speeches inciting violence, but has refused to appeal to the Court, considered pro-Kabila, he remained convinced to declare victory and to proceed accordingly, without dialogue with the opponent. The UDPS, his party, proposed peaceful demonstrations in the Country. Will they really be peaceful? How will the antagonist react, who manages the military often without qualms? What will happen to the people? Will it the end up being like the grass trampled by two elephants who are fighting?" Write the missionaries of "Peace Network for Congo".
"There is no charismatic figure in the Country like a Martin Luther King, who mobilizes and educates in a nonviolent struggle. There exists in many the sense of having reached the limit of endurance, which can lead to radical decisions", warns the text.
To this one must add "a self-styled movement of resistance to the occupation of eastern DRC which launches its proclamations inviting the general and armed mobilization, to end once and for all the occupation of the Country on behalf of Rwanda and Uganda and their sponsors in America and Europe, and the expropriation of its wealth".
But the path of violence, warn the missionaries, "has proven to the people from the East of the Country to bring massive suffering, destruction and loss. In the armed struggle, the purest ideals were generally corrupt, so that eventually the population found itself banned from all sides. But what may give rise to a new manpower for the massacres is the condition of poverty and unemployment the majority of young people face".
To overcome this situation, the "Peace Network for Congo " proposes: to put pressure on Kabila so that he does not resort to violence, to ask the political forces to dialogue, in an effort to clarify and for the good of the Country; the revision of electoral data, entrusted to an international commission of verification, accepted by both parties, with a precise expiry date, accurate surveillance in respect of the count of the legislative election", since substantial fraud is already reported"; a possible sharing of power between Kabila and members of Tshsekedi’s party. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 22/12/2011)
