AFRICA : DEM. REP. OF CONGO : BISHOPS PREVENTION OF WAR NECESSARY

Agenzia Fides REPORT - "There are consistent indications that evoke the specter of a war which still has hidden reasons". This was the warning given by the Bishops of the Ecclesiastical Province of Bukavu in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), in a message sent to the Congolese political authorities, which a copy was sent to Fides Agency.
The Bishops say it is necessary to prevent a global war on the horizon. The document lists the tensions and violence that may escalate into a larger war: the concurrent upsurge in different areas of vicious crimes attributed to gangs and armed individuals; the massacres of the population; the burning of homes and displaced mass populations; the awakening of the movement Mai-Mai (local self-defense militias, ed.) for reasons not well known; the mutinies of soldiers in Uvira; the evasion of the military (deserters, ed.) in Bukavu and the defection of troops in the territory of Beni, the attack on 14 May in Bunyakiri (south Kivu), which killed dozens of Congolese civilians and the wounding of several Pakistani "Blue Helmets" of the UN forces in Congo.
"The wars in the DRC have been and are often internal and external wars of predation, as amply highlighted by different study groups" conclude the Bishops of Kivu, whose territory is rich in agricultural resources, forestry and above all mining, which are the real stakes of over 20 years of war. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 08/06/2012)

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