wfn.org | Re: MCC appeals for blankets, prayers for victims of fighting...

[Mennonite Central Committee Communications]

TOPIC:  MCC APPEALS FOR BLANKETS, PRAYERS FOR VICTIMS OF FIGHTING IN
EASTERN ZAIRE
DATE:   November 8, 1996
CONTACT:  Pearl Sensenig
V: 717/859-1151 F: 717/859-2171
E-MAIL ADDRESS:  mailbox@mcc.org

Numbers of displaced people surpass 1994 totals 

AKRON, Pa. -- Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) is appealing for
50,000 blankets by Christmas.  The blankets will go to eastern Zaire
where more than 1 million people -- Rwandan and Burundian refugees
as well as Zairian villagers -- have fled camps and homes due to
fighting between Zaire's military and Banyamulenge (Zairian Tutsi). 
Zairian officials say Rwandans and Burundians are also involved in the
conflict.    

As well, MCC with Africa Inter-Mennonite Mission and Mennonite
Brethren Missions/Services is asking churches to set aside time on
December 1 to pray for people caught in the fighting in eastern Zaire,
as well as for other Zairians.  There are fears that the fighting racking
eastern Zaire may spread to other parts of Zaire, a country that is
home to some 170,000 Mennonites.

Persons wishing to contribute blankets can deliver them to any MCC
office by December 25, along with $4 Cdn./$3 U.S. per blanket to pay
for shipping costs.  The blankets will go to Bukavu, Zaire, where
churches will distribute them to needy people early next year.  Reports
indicate soldiers, many of whom serve unpaid, have looted the town,
stealing anything they can sell.  

MCC continues to invite contributions to its "Central Africa Healing
Fund."  The money will be used to transport warm clothing, which
MCC has in stock, and for future responses yet to be determined. 
When the situation stabilizes, MCC will gear its aid to people
overlooked by bigger agencies.  The money will also go to MCC's
ongoing peace and other work in Rwanda, Burundi and Zaire.

MCC is also helping send lentils and oil, valued at $4.5 million
Cdn./$3.3 million U.S., to the Rwandan and Burundian refugees.  The
three-part shipment is set to arrive in eastern Zaire in December 1996
and in January and March 1997.

While it is difficult to make an accurate count, the number of
displaced people in eastern Zaire has now surpassed 1994 totals.  The
world was shocked then by media pictures of columns of refugees
pouring out of Rwanda into Zaire.  Then, as now, the threat of famine
and disease looms large.  Most of the displaced are cut off from aid as
roads and airports are closed.

Terry Sawatsky, co-director of MCC's Africa programs, says the
violence can be divided into two separate, though overlapping
conflicts.  One is a civil war between Zaire's military and
Banyamulenge, Zairian Tutsi.  The Banyamulenge have captured three
major towns, including Bukavu.

The other conflict revolves around tension between Rwanda's Tutsi
government and the defeated Rwandan Hutu government, which has its
base in the refugee camps in eastern Zaire.  "Since 1994 we have been
told it is only a matter of time before either the former military would
regroup and try to regain Rwanda, or Rwanda would find some way to
attack the refugee camps," says Sawatsky. 

Some observers speculate that the fact that the Banyamulenge are
considered Tutsi provided a natural link to the Rwanda and Burundi
governments, which are also controlled by Tutsi.  The Banyamulenge
needed help to fight the Zairian military and the Rwandan and
Burundian governments needed a destabilized situation to attack the
refugee camps.

"All of this adds up to a volatile mix that is creating untold human
misery, says Sawatsky.

                         -30-

pls8november1996

MCC photo available -- This 1994 photo shows a mother and child at
Izirangabo, one of four Rwandan refugee camps near Bukavu, Zaire,
that MCC helped support.  MCC workers fear the camp's participants
have been "refugeed" again, forced to flee into the hills to avoid recent
fighting in Bukavu.  Roads and airports have been cut off leaving
MCC with no way to communicate with the refugees.  (MCC photo by
Dave Klassen) TOPIC:  MCC WORKERS IN EASTERN ZAIRE SHARE THE AGONY OF DECISION TO
EVACUATE
DATE:   November 8, 1996
CONTACT:  Pearl Sensenig
V: 717/859-1151 F: 717/859-2171
E-MAIL ADDRESS:  mailbox@mcc.org

"How can we leave our friends?"
EDITOR'S NOTE:  Krista Rigalo and her husband, Fidele
Lumeya, had been working in forestry and peace projects in
Bukavu, Zaire.  The events Krista describes took place during
October.  On October 27 Krista and Fidele left Bukavu for Kenya,
where they remain.   

NAIROBI, Kenya --  Evacuating, the act of deciding a place is no
longer safe and leaving, is never a quick or easy decision.  Fidele and
I watched the first wave of evacuees -- wealthier Zairians -- leave
Bukavu, Zaire.  We heard the Bukavu airstrip was inundated and there
weren't enough flights to accommodate all those wishing to leave.  But
we continued to believe evacuation was unnecessary.  War could never
reach Bukavu, we thought.  The international community would never
let the situation deteriorate to that point.
     And then the Rwandan refugee camps south of Bukavu were
attacked.  We heard thousands of refugees were fleeing the camps and
heading north.  As the first rains of the rainy season pounded Bukavu
that night, we huddled in bed, thinking of those out in the cold and
rain, unprotected.  The next day the first of these refugees arrived in
Bukavu.  Wearily placing one foot before the other, mostly women
and children made the 60-kilometer/37-mile march, carrying the lump
sum of their worldly possessions: a blackened cooking pot, a sleeping
mat and a small bundle of clothes.  Nothing had prepared us for this
sight, this visual reminder of how inhumane we humans can be.

As the trickle of refugees became a flow, the United Nations decided
to reroute them to camps outside Bukavu.  While the brutal reality of
another 85-kilometer/53-mile walk for the already exhausted and
hungry refugees shocked us, I, for one, was relieved to not have to see
them anymore.  Their misery leaves scars on the heart.
     As tension continued to escalate, more military arrived from
Kinshasa, Zaire's capital.  We heard of battles fought and lost, of
Zairian military fleeing.  They said they felt out-gunned, out-
numbered, out-classed.  They felt abandoned and betrayed by their
government.  As war with the Banyamulenge (Zairian Tutsis) was
declared in the southern portion of the region, Bukavu began to be
over-run, strangled and menaced by the very Zairian troops sent to
protect it.

Zairian soldiers who have not, in real terms, been paid in more than
three years turned on the local population, looting and extorting money
from civilians at roadblocks.  Vehicles were confiscated and armed
military could be seen patrolling the city in aid agency vehicles.  It
was no longer possible to travel in a vehicle without an armed escort,
shades of Somalia.  We parked our vehicle and began to travel by
foot.  We jokingly said we had gained weight and needed exercise. 
But as a joke it fell flat; our friends and co-workers found this act a
frightening confirmation of the degree to which the situation had
deteriorated.
      As so often happens in these situations, the feared anarchy came
quickly.  The United Nations evacuated its expatriate personnel on
October 26.  Due to the lawlessness of the Zairian military, aid
workers could no longer go to the Rwandan refugee camps to assess
the numbers and conditions of the incoming refugees, let alone
distribute food, clothing or blankets.
     Fidele and I watched their departure with dread.  While this meant
we were now personally cut-off from contact with the outside world,
we realized the last "authority" in Bukavu was, for the moment,
washing its hands of the situation.  This would have incredible,
disastrous implications for the population of Bukavu as a whole.  Now
no one was in control.  We found ourselves in the middle of a war
zone, compounded by a refugee crisis, menaced by the same soldiers
who were originally sent to protect, about to face a food crisis of
catastrophic proportions, without any means of communicating with
the outside world and without money or the means to have money sent
in.

We spent agonizing hours discussing what to do -- should we take
advantage of a special evacuation flight scheduled for the next day? 
Perhaps this would be our last chance to leave.  What about our
friends in Bukavu, how do we leave them?  What message would our
departure give them?  What words do you use to explain that the
situation is so volatile you can no longer stay, but leave unspoken the
reality that they and their families will have to stay?

We finally decided to leave for Nairobi, Kenya, promising ourselves
we would return to Bukavu within two days, staying away only long
enough to get money and communicate the situation to Mennonite
Central Committee headquarters.
     Events unfold in unpredictable ways and we now find ourselves
"captives" in Nairobi, cut off geographically and spiritually from our
brothers and sisters in Bukavu.  Bukavu literally exploded several
hours after we left, the site of rebel aggression and Zairian soldier
looting.  For the moment there is no way we can return to Bukavu, no
flights in or out of the region.  We follow the rather scanty news on
the radio and television, we trade rumors with other aid workers
evacuated here, we think, we remember and we pray.

                         -30-

Krista Rigalo, MCC Zaire

pls8november1996

Krista Rigalo of Crystal River, Fla., is affiliated with Riverside
Christian Fellowship in Hernando, Fla., and is a member of the
Mennonite Brethren Church of Zaire in Kinshasa, Zaire.  Fidele
Lumeya of Kinshasa, Zaire, is a member of the Mennonite Brethren
Church of Zarie in Kinshasa. 

MCC photo available:  Krista Rigalo and Fidele Lumeya.  (MCC photo
by Tony Siemens)