Pope Francis, who recently arrived in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as part of a trip to two African countries, has warned that Western nations cease stealing Africa’s natural resources for the “poison of their own greed.”
Since Pope John Paul II visited the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1985, when it was still known as Zaire, Pope Francis, 86, is the only pope to make such a trip.
“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.
Francis requested that foreign interests stop dividing the country for their own purposes and accept their part in the economic “enslavement” of the Congolese people. He referred to the huge mineral and natural richness of the country as a “diamond of creation.”
“Stop suffocating Africa. The first Latin American pope in history, who has long complained about how affluent nations have taken advantage of the resources of less wealthy ones for their own gain, declared that it was neither a mine to be stripped or a territory to be robbed.
Francis blamed Belgium and other colonial powers for the exploitation of the Congo, a nation 80 times the size of Belgium, before it achieved independence in 1960. He added that neighboring nations currently play a similar role.
The 86-year-old said there was a “forgotten genocide” going on but avoided mentioning Belgium or any other neighboring nations by name.
“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.”
From Kinshasa, Al Jazeera’s Malcolm Webb said that hundreds, if not thousands, of people followed the pope’s parade of motorbikes to the presidential palace.
“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.
Roman Catholics make up about half of Congo’s 90 million population.
Francis’s knee issues, which were still so severe on Tuesday that he could not stand to greet journalists in the plane flying to Kinshasa and was forced to use a wheelchair on the ground, forced him to postpone the six-day trip, which also includes a stop in South Sudan. The original departure date for the trip was supposed to be in July 2022.
Dispute in the DRC
Francis was also intended to make a visit in the eastern Congo city of Goma, but attacks by rebels affiliated with the ISIL (ISIS) armed group as well as fierce combat between government forces and the M23 rebel group have afflicted the North Kivu province.
According to the World Food Programme, 5.7 million people have been displaced by the war, a sixth of them only last year.
Rwanda is charged by Congo with supporting the M23 rebel group that is battling government forces in the east. This is denied by Rwanda.
“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 stated that the Congolese people were resisting “deplorable attempts to split the country” in order to maintain their national unity. In his talk, the pope avoided mentioning Rwanda or taking a side in the conflict.
Francis will meet with a team from the east in Kinshasa for a private meeting at the Vatican embassy on Wednesday rather than travelling to Goma.
They are supposed to take part in a ceremony when they all pledge to forgive their attackers.
