wfn.org | Congolese leaders seek U.S. help to oust troops

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Note #6209 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

6-October-2000
00347

Congolese leaders seek U.S. help to oust troops, urge Presbyterian Church to
send missionaries back

Officials say embattled Congo is "a major disaster ... largely being
ignored"

by Alexa Smith

LOUISVILLE -- Visiting Congolese leaders pressured Presbyterian Church (USA)
officials here to urge the U.S. government to use its diplomatic clout to
get foreign troops out of the Democratic Republic of Congo -- and to put
Presbyterian missionaries back into a nation that has been ravaged by
poverty and war for decades.

	"The silence we are sensing right now, we hope will not continue," the Rev.
Mbaya Tshiakani, the legal representative of the Presbyterian Community of
Congo (PCC), told delegates at the Year 2000 Congo Consultation, speaking
not only about the U.S. government, but also the church.  "It is making the
Congolese people suffer.

	"So speak out."

	Tshiakani said at least five nations have military forces in the Congo,
which also has long been a battle ground for rebel factions from a number of
neighboring countries. The armed parties not only add to the relentless
violence in the country, but also worsen the poverty, fear and disease that
wrack the nation and kill Congolese citizens.

	The nation is reeling from two civil wars in two years -- not to mention
decades of poverty and violence.

	"We feel discouraged," said the Rev. Mulumba  Mukundi, general secretary of
the PCC, a denomination headquartered in Congo's mineral-and-industry-rich
center. "The U.S. is the only country that has the power to say: ‘Stop this
war,' and the war will be stopped. ... If the U.S. says something, the
situation might change. But it is not doing it. It keeps quiet."

	 The irony of the U.S. silence isn't lost on Tshiakani, who has charged
that the U.S. has played a pivotal, and often duplicitous, role in Congolese
politics. It was the United States and Belgium that put the despised
dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in office in 1965 and backed his authoritarian
regime for 32 years while the country, then called Zaire, grew poorer and
the president grew richer.

	The United States also backed the ousting of Mobutu by Kabila three years
ago, when his then rebel-army, supported by Rwanda, took the country in just
seven months -- making Kabila a national hero and then the president of
Congo.

	 But there is a problem: Kabila is a president who has never been elected,
and he has balked on setting a timetable for free elections.

	"The U.S. refuses to denounce what is happening (to us)," said Tshiakani,
who insisted that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has been more vocal
politically in the past than it is now. "As a church, we must speak and
think deeply. ...

	"We're not asking the U.S. to send troops. ... If Kabila (has) troops to
vanquish the rebels, (life) will be worse for us than before. If Kabila is
vanquished, (life) will be worse than ever," Tshiakani said.

	Angolan, Zimbabwean, Chadian and Namibian forces are in Congo to bolster
Kabila's sagging regime and fend off attacks from Uganda, Burundi and
Rwanda, whose rebel forces are occupying regions in the Congo's north and
south in hopes of toppling Kabila. Unconfirmed reports from Kabinda in the
east and Sankuru in the north say that the rebels are torturing civilians
and violently suppressing opposition.

	The nine Congolese delegates proposed that foreign armies be removed from
Congo through diplomacy and that United Nations peacekeepers be stationed
there to ensure fair elections, something Kabila promised three years ago
but has not delivered.

	The Rev. Marian McClure, director of the Worldwide Ministries Division,
told the visiting delegates that the PC(USA) will be a better steward of its
power and will use its voice to influence the U.S. Congress.

	"The PC(USA) has a tradition, in a sense, of playing Esther in the palace,"
McClure said. "And we are hearing our brothers and sisters from Congo say to
activate that tradition and speak to Washington about the situation."

	The deadliness of Congo politics right now is mind-boggling -- even for the
human-rights organizations that respond day in and day out the humanitarian
consequences.

	Amnesty International calls Congo "a disaster," and has pushed, without
success, for an arms embargo in the region, a withdrawal of all the
militaries and an investigation of past abuses committed by various armed
factions.

	In July, Physicians for Human Rights and the International Rescue Committee
 reported that at least 1.5 million civilian deaths over the past two years
were directly or indirectly caused by the war.

	"We're looking at a major disaster that is largely being ignored," Suliman
Baldo of Human Rights Watch told the Presbyterian News Service (PNS).
"There's a lot of focus on the politics, on the changing military alliances.
But there's very little attention paid to the civilians who are caught in
the middle of all this. ... Targeting civilians is, unfortunately, a feature
of modern warfare in Africa." Baldo cited the Rwandan genocide that has
spilled over into Congo.

	Other civilians die because of the effects of the war -- forced
displacement, exposure to the elements, disruption of supplies, malnutrition
and lack of access to health care.

	These war effects are what led to the PC(USA)'s decision to remove most 
missionaries from Congo -- another war-related issue that hit the
negotiating table here.

	"There has been among Congolese a sense of abandonment," said Doug Welch, a
former Congo missionary and now the denomination's liaison to Congo and
other parts of central and west Africa. "We've not been able to have much of
a presence there because of problems related to the war.

	"And, that means, our connections weaken," he said, noting that U.S.
personnel were largely evacuated three years ago when Kabila's revolution
took hold -- and the wisdom of re-assigning mission personnel to a war zone
is the subject of an ongoing debate among denominational staff.

	Welch said the Congo is not devoid of U.S. Presbyterians. One couple has
been working there for some time, and another just arrived on Sept. 24.  A
third couple is beginning language study for placement there in the summer,
and other positions are being posted. The Worldwide Ministries Division is
not now assigning couples with children to Congo.

	That's a far cry from the close ties that once existed between the
Presbyterian Church and the Congo. In the post-war missionary boom of the
1950s and '60s, Presbyterians had more than 100 missionaries in the Congo.

	The Rev. Don Bobb, of Austin, Texas, who worked in the Congo for 17 years,
served as a translator during the Year 2000 Consultation. He told PNS that
the Congolese are urging former missionaries to return for short-term
placements. Bobb also questioned the wisdom of the PC(USA)'s decision to
expand outreach into other countries while its historic partners are
clamoring for time, attention and financial help.

	Mukundi takes the long view. He told PNS that he "understands perfectly"
why the Presbyterians would pull mission personnel out of a nation where the
bloodletting never seems to stop. "It is a void," he said of their absence.
"But ... despite the fact that there are (few) missionary personnel left,
the PC(USA) continues to support the Congo."

	But many younger members of the clergy are more critical.

	Tshiakani, for instance, said he understands why the PC(USA) has qualms
about putting missionaries in unsafe settings. "But it is visible that they
are not there," he said. "People do question why the Catholic missionaries
stay, and ours go out on the first plane when things go bad.

	"We understand. But it is a question for our solidarity," Tshiakanj said,
denying that it's the money that motivates Congolese to seek the return of
the missionaries. "It is difficult to keep on carrying out the
responsibilities and tasks that missionaries once helped with," he said.

	That's how Welch summed up the four-day conference. "It has been an
opportunity for our church to hear very clearly from churches in the Congo
their concern about the war that has engulfed their country and the effects
it has had on the life of the people," he said.

	The war has affected the church's work, too, by cutting off access to whole
regions of the country and reducing day-to-day existence to survival.

	"This is a problem that is very profound," said the Rev. Tshimungu Mayela
Josue, general secretary of the Presbyterian Community of Kinshasa.  "That's
why it is the main thing we've talked about, ending this war. ... It is a
useless war.

	"I don't know any other case in history where other countries come into a
country and fight amongst themselves," he added. "People die in a war in a
country that is not even their own."

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