Cardinal Ambongo Decries “shameless predation” of DR Congo’s Resources by Neighbours

The February 24 Eucharistic celebration was Cardinal Ambongo’s response to a request that the President of the National Episcopal Conference of Congo (CENCO) made on February 20, encouraging the people of God in DRC to “intensify prayers for peace” and Local Ordinaries to offer Holy Mass for peace in the Eastern part of the country.

In the statement, Archbishop Marcel Utembi Tapa of Kisangani Archdiocese lamented that the security situation in the country had been “deteriorating, especially in the eastern part” and recommended that “a special prayer for peace be said at the end of each Mass, as the Church does from time to time in certain circumstances.”

In his February 24 homily, Cardinal Ambongo traced insecurity in DRC to the 1994 Rwandan genocide in which over 800,000 people were killed. During the genocide, over 2 million others were displaced and forced to seek refuge across the country’s borders. Some who found their way to DRC are said to have brought the war with them.

“Our populations, especially in the east of the country, have been living through a veritable tragedy and torment for almost three decades,” Cardinal Ambongo said, and recalled that “right at the dawn of these conflicts in August 1994”, Catholic Bishops in DRC had “sounded the alarm”, alerting the country’s leaders and the international community to the risks of the crisis.

The Catholic Church leaders, he said, had expressed concern over “the transfer of the Rwandan conflict to our country.”

“Despite this warning, 30 years on, the situation is bitterly grim: millions of people are still dead and displaced, thousands of women have been raped, families have been broken up, children have been orphaned, infrastructures have been destroyed, and so on,” the Archbishop of Kinshasa lamented. 

He continued, “In reality, what appeared to be an accidental transfer of the Rwandan inter-ethnic conflict has ended up revealing its hidden agenda.”

The Local Ordinary of Kinshasa Archdiocese, who doubles as the President of the Symposium of Episcopal Conference of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) went on to decry what he described as “expansionist ambitions” of countries bordering DRC especially to the East, where he said there is “systematic plundering” of the country’s resources.

“Over the years, various missions and organizations have reported the expansionist ambitions of certain neighbouring countries in the East, and the systematic plundering of the Congolese sub-soil’s riches by multinationals, under the cover of internal grievance groups,” he said.

The Congolese member of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin (OFM Cap) further criticized the international community’s inaction as DRC is plundered and made to undergo violence, noting that the silence amounts to “complicity”.