The 86-year-old
Francis is the first pontiff to visit DR Congo since Pope John Paul
II did so in 1985, when the country was still known as Zaire.
“Hands off the
Democratic Republic of the Congo! Hands off Africa!” Francis said on Tuesday to
applause in his opening speech to Congolese government authorities and the
diplomatic corps in the garden of Kinshasa’s national palace.
Calling Congo’s
vast mineral and natural wealth a “diamond of creation”, Francis demanded that
foreign interests stop carving up the country for their own interests and acknowledge
their role in the economic “enslavement” of the Congolese people.
“Stop choking
Africa. It is not a mine to be stripped or a terrain to be plundered,” said
history’s first Latin American pope, who has long railed at how wealthy
countries have exploited the resources of poorer ones for their own profit.
Francis pointed
the finger at the role colonial powers such as Belgium played in the
exploitation of Congo until the country, which is 80 times the size of Belgium,
gained its independence in 1960. He also said neighbouring countries are
playing a similar role today.
The 86-year-old
didn’t identify Belgium or any neighbouring country by name, but he spared no
word of condemnation, saying there was a “forgotten genocide” under way.
“The poison of greed
has smeared its diamonds with blood,” Francis said.
“May the world
acknowledge the catastrophic things that were done over the centuries to the
detriment of the local peoples, and not forget this country and this
continent.”
Al Jazeera’s
Malcolm Webb, reporting from Kinshasa, said hundreds if not thousands of people
on the roads followed the pope’s motorcade on motorbikes to the presidential
palace from the airport.
“The roads were lined up with church groups and schoolchildren from the many Catholic-run church schools run over here in Congo,” he added.
“The Catholic
church runs about 60 percent of health and education services here … it’s what
makes the Catholic Church such a significant institution here [in Congo],” Webb
added.
About half of
Congo’s population of 90 million are Roman Catholics.
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The six-day trip, which also includes a stop in South Sudan, was originally scheduled for July 2022, but was postponed because of Francis’s knee problems, which were still so serious on Tuesday that he could not stand to greet journalists in the plane heading to Kinshasa and was forced to use a wheelchair on the ground.
Fighting in
DRC
Francis was also
supposed to have included a stop in Goma, in eastern Congo, but the surrounding
North Kivu region has been plagued by intense fighting between government
troops and the M23 rebel group, as well as attacks by fighters linked to the
ISIL (ISIS) armed group.
The fighting has
displaced some 5.7 million people, a fifth of them last year alone, according
to the World Food Programme.
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Congo accuses
Rwanda of backing the M23 rebel group fighting government troops in
the east. Rwanda denies this.
“As well as
armed militias, foreign powers hungry for the minerals in our soil commit, with
the direct and cowardly support of our neighbour Rwanda, cruel atrocities,”
said Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi, speaking just before the pope on the
same stage.
The pope said
the Congolese people were fighting to preserve their territorial integrity
“against deplorable attempts to fragment the country”. The pope did not name
Rwanda in his address or take sides in the dispute.
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The plan calls
for them to participate in a ceremony in which they jointly commit to forgiving
their assailants.
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES
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