What you need to know about the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Pope’s first stop in Africa

With immense mineral wealth and fertile lands, a large and young population and a territory the size of Western Europe, the Democratic Republic of the Congo should be Africa’s economic engine and a world power.

But the country, sometimes referred to as Africa’s “sleeping giant,” has been held back by a bloody legacy of colonialismendless wars, decades of mismanagement of public funds and a chronic lack of infrastructure.

Pope Francis had planned to travel to eastern Congo, but the intensification of the incessant fighting between militias – which cost millions of lives during the conflict – forced him to limit himself to the capital, Kinshasa, located in the west of the country.

According to numerous historians, the country was destined to fail due to the responsibility of the colonizing power, Belgium, which for decades ruled the Congo with an iron fist, extracting its immense natural wealth.

Belgium abruptly withdrew after independence in 1960, denying the Republic of the Congo the transitional period its leaders demanded.

Shortly before his assassination in 1961, Patrice Lumumba, independence leader and prime minister of the Congo, wrote in his last letter to his wife: “I want my children, whom I leave behind and who I may never see again, to know that Congo’s future is beautiful.”

More than half a century later, Congo is still trying to turn its vision into reality.

Jungle, oil and gas

The country has a vast tropical forest which is considered one of the lungs of the world.

Most of the Congolese rainforest, more than 2 million square kilometers of biodiverse tropical forests and carbon-rich peatlands, is located in the Congo. The rest spread to neighboring countries.

Second only to the Amazon, the Congo rainforest removes large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere: one study calculates its value at 55,000 million dollars a year.

Rainforest and bogs face multiple threats: loggers, coal producers and, most recently, the Congolese government, which announced last year that it would auction off oil blocks that overlap protected areas.

Congo recently awarded three North American companies the rights to exploit gas blocks under Lake Kivu.

While some areas are rapidly disappearing, there are still vast tracts of pristine rainforest.

precious minerals

Congo is rich in rare and precious minerals.

With gold, copper, diamonds, coltan and, according to calculations, two-thirds of the planet’s cobalt – a key element in electric car batteries – experts believe the Congo is one of the richest countries in the world in minerals.

And the competition for them is fierce. As the world begins the transition away from fossil fuels, cobalt has become extremely valuable. China and the United States have launched a race to gain control of world supply.

According to the US Treasury Department, almost all of Congo’s gold ends up in the hands of regional powers such as Rwanda and Uganda: it is smuggled, refined and exported to international markets, especially the United Arab Emirates. Rwanda and Uganda have denied the allegations.

The rush to extract Congo’s wealth has led to the exploitation of miners, violence against local communities and proxy wars, especially in the east of the country.

The eastern population is facing an escalation of violence and instability.

The conflict has gripped the East for decades, where more than one hundred armed groups identified by a series of acronyms – ADF, FDLR, LNR and CODECO – have killed, raped and they have displaced 5.5 million people, according to the United Nations.

Refugees from Congo have been fleeing for years to other African countries and to Europe, Canada and the United States.

But recently, a militant group called M23 has fueled and perpetrated a new wave of violence massacres and causing the flight of hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom travel to the lakeside city of Goma.

There, tiny tents made of tarpaulin and duct tape now blanket the landscape, providing dreary shelter for their occupants, who are often young children and traumatized mothers.

Congo assures that Rwanda supports the M23, and the Congolese president, Félix Tshisekedi, has accused the country of “expansionist tendencies”.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame – long a Western protégé whose country is a major recipient of US aid – denies backing the militia. But UN experts have published credible evidence that Rwanda exercises “overall command and strategic planning” of the M23, arming it and assisting in its recruitment.

Hostilities, which trace their roots to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, have escalated in recent weeks when Rwanda fired on a Congolese military plane it said was invading its airspace.

The power of the Catholic Church

The Congolese Catholic Church is politically powerful.

The Catholic Church of Congo, the largest in Africa, exerts a strong influence on the country’s democracy.

Since the 1990s, the Church has played a decisive role in holding the country’s leaders to account.

After Sunday Mass, congregations across the country sometimes march directly from church to rallies, making it more difficult for authorities to ban or suppress protests.

Over the years, protesters have taken to the streets for the unconstitutional attempt by the president to run for a third term and they called for new elections and an end to the war in the east.

At the time of the elections, the Church sends observers to polling stations throughout the country – 40,000 in the last elections – to verify the correct conduct of the elections and denounce any attempt to disturb the progress or alter the results.

The last time Congo went to the polls to elect a new president, in December 2018, the Catholic Church announced there was a clear winner.

Although he refrained from saying who it was, pundits agreed that it was Martin Fayulu, the main opposition candidate. But Fayulu was unable to take office, nor was the ruling party’s candidate, handpicked by then-President Joseph Kabila. In his place, another opposition figure, Tshisekedi, took power, supported by Kabila.

New elections will be held in December. Tshisekedi and Fayulu are expected to compete again.

Source: New York Times

Translation: Elisa Carnelli

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