wfn.org | Zairian Church Plays Complicated Role

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

16-April-1997 
97163 
 
             Zairian Church Plays Complicated Role as 
                    Rebel Forces near Takeover 
 
                          by Alexa Smith 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky.--When the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation 
of the Congo (ADFL) took over Mbuji-Mayi, it was a Presbyterian minister 
locals asked to talk to the approaching rebels who have -- in a stunning 
six-month onslaught -- gained control of southern and eastern Zaire and 
sent government forces fleeing, pillaging towns as they retreat. 
 
     Mbuji-Mayi, near the dead center of the country, is the commercial hub 
for Zaire's nearly $20 million monthly diamond trade.  It is also one of 
the major centers of Presbyterian ministry in Zaire's East Kasai region. 
 
     "When [ADFL Commander Laurent] Kabila's troops came, we were there 
with the people of the city," the Rev. Mbaya Tshiakanyi, a leader of the 
Presbyterian Community of Zaire (PCZ), told the Presbyterian News Service 
in a telephone interview.  "[I said]  Okay, we welcome you.  We hope you 
bring to us true liberation. ... 
 
     " [We hope] that you bring to us respect ... for human beings, for 
life.  All the values we preach of in the church.'" 
 
     But the hope Tshiakanyi is voicing is hope tinged with the kind of 
pragmatism borne of  having watched "liberation" go bad before.  And while 
the PCZ is clear what it is being "liberated" from -- since it has publicly 
criticized the 31-year military government of billionaire president Mobutu 
Sese Seko as corrupt and guilty of gross human rights violations -- it is 
waiting to see what will happen next. As Tshiakanyi puts it, "People here 
are happy, walking around during the day ... feeling relieved of something 
which was very dangerous -- the soldiers of Mobutu. 
 
     "But even if this is liberation, it is a military liberation.  The 
question now is tomorrow.  You never know the way a military will rule a 
country.  This is the main question." 
 
     So while the ADFL is being welcomed as liberators in more than 30 
percent of Zaire, onlookers are justifiably wary of what kind of government 
will emerge out of this political chaos, where President Mobutu's military 
government prohibited the newly appointed prime minister, Etienne 
Tshisekedi, from taking office earlier last week.  And it is not quite 
clear what Kabila, an ex-Marxist whose public opinions about Tshisekedi's 
importance fluctuate, means when he says that he intends to ban opposition 
parties in what is now called the Liberated Republic of the Congo 
(ADFL-controlled areas) and install an all-rebel transition government. 
 
     The hard task for the church in the midst of such turmoil, Zaire 
onlookers contend, is to avoid currying favor with the victors as a way of 
ensuring institutional survival.  "The church will have to run the risk of 
standing between the ADFL and whatever [political] power is left.  That's 
fearsome and frightening, but necessary," according to Zairian church 
historian Philippe Kabongo-Mbaya, who grew up in the East Kasai and who now 
writes and teaches in Paris.  "That's a high risk. ... If the church is 
faithful to the gospel message, it may find itself between an anvil and a 
hammer -- two political forces coming together." 
 
     Respect for human rights, life and property and a vision for the 
common good are the kinds of "gospel values" Kabongo-Mbaya says the church 
needs to advocate -- being a voice of conscience rather than a power 
player.  "People are already fearing that Kabila might become another 
dictator," he said. 
 
     "I know many, at first blush, who are thankful that Kabila has come to 
chase out the dictator Mobutu ... but [who may] have serious problems if 
Kabila does not respect the democratic process," he said. One clue to 
Kabila's intentions, Kabango-Mbaya added, is whether he will embrace or 
discard long-standing peaceful opponents of Mobutu like Tshisekedi, a 
civilian politician who has backed Zaire's movement toward democracy. 
 
     Credibility problems already exist for Protestant churches in Zaire, 
since the country's ecumenical council, the Church of Christ of Zaire 
(ECZ), is widely perceived to be Mobutu controlled. However, not all of its 
member communions are regarded with equal suspicion.  The Presbyterians, 
Baptists, Methodists and Mennonites all said no to Mobutu's 1989 attempt to 
handpick and appoint for life the denominational leaders of all Zaire's 
churches. 
 
     "Of all the Protestants, the Presbyterians have been the most critical 
of Mobutu," said PC(USA) East/West Africa liaison and former mission worker 
in Zaire the Rev. Hunter Farrell, who said three PCZ General Assemblies 
issued resolutions condemning Mobutu's human rights abuses and corrupt 
government.  "Talk of democracy hadn't even started at that time," he said, 
referring to the first 1989 resolution.  "And public criticism of Mobutu in 
Zaire was taboo. 
 
     "So when a church body in Zaire did that ... that was just massive," 
said Farrell, stressing that people have disappeared there for less and the 
Assembly took its action with no small amount of anxiety. 
 
     But such conviction became increasingly visible as a younger 
generation -- what some call a more "activist minority" -- began moving 
into what had been quieter leadership, when Zaire  wrested its independence 
from Belgium in 1960 after years of colonial domination.  Then, too, 
deepening human rights abuses catalyzed grassroots opinion into a movement 
that was forced on the church rather than sought by it, according to 
Presbyterian "mish kid" John Metzel, who grew up in East Kasai and who now 
manages the Zaire Educational Council, a nonprofit advocacy organization in 
Washington, D.C.  He cites as one turning point the 1990 massacre of 
Christian groups who were peacefully marching after church services in 
Kinshasa, Zaire's capital. 
 
     "Traditionally, the older people, having grown up under Belgian 
domination, were acquiesent. That's what had to be," said longtime PC(USA) 
Zaire missionary John Pritchard, now of Atlanta.  "But today's generation 
has said,  Hey, we can make change happen.'" And he admits that such a 
change in thinking was taught by the example of missionaries like himself 
who testified against Mobutu's U.S.-backed regime before the U.S. Congress 
in the 1980s and by the campaign of ecumenical bodies like the World 
Council of Churches and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches against 
human rights abuses in Zaire. 
 
     Indiana State University professor Franois Muyumba of Terre Haute, 
Ind., grew up in the East Kasai, the son of a Presbyterian minister.  An 
admitted radical, Muyumba wishes the PCZ had been at the forefront of 
Zaire's liberation movement, as theologians and pastors were in Central 
America in the 1980s.  "The business of liberation is also the business of 
the church," he said, lamenting that systematic theological reflection is 
hampered in Zaire because few pastors get rigorous theological training. 
 
     "They could have been more in the forefront," he said.  "They knew the 
system was unjust.  "They just did not have the tools to organize a 
movement." 
 
     It is not clear yet how the civil war will immediately impact the 
church's ministries in the East Kasai.  Transportation is cut off from 
Kinshasa, where the PCZ's sister church is located, the Presbyterian 
Community of Kinshasa.  Since imports are suspended, prices are going up. 
The PC(USA)-supported Christian Medical Institute of the Kasai (IMCK) was 
ransacked by government soldiers, who took nine vehicles and medical 
supplies. 
 
     PC(USA) missionary surgeon John Fletcher told the Presbyterian News 
Service that "everyone is keen to see the rebels arrive, particularly given 
the period of insecurity and theft we have just been through.  The church 
would, of course, like to be an instrument of humanitarian aid, but at this 
point we all have been stripped clean and have no resources, no means to 
deliver aid.  And there is not enough security to allow free movement." 
 
     At press time, Fletcher and four other PC(USA) missionaries were still 
awaiting the arrival of the ADFL in Kanaga, a city about 50 miles west of 
Mbuji-Mayi. 
 
     Tshiakanyi reports that Presbyterian and Catholic parishes are 
receiving women and children who are among the 2,800 Rwandan and Burundian 
refugees who have walked the 480 miles from Zaire's border.  The men are in 
camps outside the city.  Worship and pastoral care are ongoing -- or, as he 
said -- "Everything in the church is going on.  And we bless God." 
 
     Critical distance -- in spite of widespread support for liberation -- 
is what Kabongo-Mbaya believes is necessary now as political events unfold. 
"Don't read the events of the Kasai as though the church is throwing itself 
into the arms of the liberators," he said. "They're opening up 
opportunities to discuss, [creating ] a means for dialogue in the future." 
But PC(USA) mission worker David Law in Kanaga said that for most Zairians 
"full-blown endorsement" of the occupation is already the case. "They 
[Zairians] say,  We don't care if Kabila is worse than Mobutu.  We just 
want change.'" 
 
     Law said that how the church navigates this time will depend on the 
character of its leaders, since the temptation will be great to seek favor 
with the popular new powers, which several missionaries attested has been a 
problem in the past. 
 
     But right now, Tshiakanyi said, even the secular community is turning 
to church leaders for advice and for support.  "Everybody is coming to me 
as the legal representative of the church, asking what to do.  The church 
is, to some extent, the only institution in power and having a message to 
give to the society. 
 
     "It seems everybody is turning to the church to know ... what we 
think." 

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