AFRICA/DR CONGO - Catholic laity promise new protests

Thursday, 4 January 2018 violence bishops persecutions

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Kinshasa (Agenzia Fides) - "We can be proud for having participated in the protest on 31 December 2017. We can not backtrack anymore, our children look at us, the whole world looks at us, our conscience asks us", says in a statement the Comité Laic de Coordination (CLC, Catholic laity organization) which promoted the December 31 protest in some cities of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Similar events were also held by the Congolese expatriated in Dakar, Paris, Brussels , London, Geneva and other parts of the world.
The CLC promises new initiatives in a few days after "having given a proper burial to our compatriots, who died for their motherland, and to take care of the wounded" to ask President Josesph Kabila a declaration with which he declares publicly that he will not run for another term as president in compliance with the Constitution. In particular, the following points are requested: the release of political prisoners; return from exile of opponents threatened with arrest; end of the duplication of political parties (ie the creation of a false opposition by the presidential majority); liberation of media spaces and in particular of national radio-television; reopening of arbitrarily closed media; restructuring of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to recreate trust between the electorate and the body that manages the elections; freedom for all to exercise political activities; to use the electoral calendar proposed by INEC for the elaboration of a shared calendar.
This last point derives from the fact that on 5 November INEC presented an electoral calendar according to which the presidential elections will be held on 23 December 2018. The unilateral decision of INEC has raised strong criticism from the opposition (see Fides 6/11/2017) that saw above all an attempt by Kabila to reduce US pressure. Indeed, Washington, through its own UN ambassador, had threatened that if the elections did not take place in 2018, they would cut the financial support for the DRC. Kabila’s mandate, in power since 2001, ended in December 2016, the Constitution forbids him to run again, but allows him to remain in office until the election of his successor.
The violent repression of the protest organized by the Congolese Catholics has been strongly stigmatized by the local Bishops (see Fides 3/1/2018) which denounce the desecration of churches committed by the military and perhaps also by English-speaking mercenaries, according to Congolese press sources. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides, 4/1/2018)