Visitor from Congo Addresses Refugee Crisis in Central Africa
Laurence Runyambo, a woman who works with widows and orphans in the eastern Congo, recently visited Portland to speak about her work with 120 widows and their 600 children. The women and children are all victims of the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which raged from 1996-2001, leaving 2.5 million dead. The word genocide has been used a few times in the history of the world. Many people have a hard time understanding the real meaning of genocide. According to the United Nations, the killings in Rwanda were called genocide because of the decimation of an entire ethnic group. Decimation means the killing of every tenth person in a population. In the spring and early summer of 1994, a program of massacres decimated the Republic of Rwanda. Although the killing was low-tech, performed largely by machete, it was carried out at dazzling speed. Of the original population of eight million, at least one million people were killed in just one hundred days.
By comparison, Pol Pot's slaughter of a million Cambodians in four years looks amateurish, and the bloodletting in the former Yugoslavia measures up as little more than a neighborhood riot. The dead in Rwanda accumulated at nearly three times the rate of Jewish dead during the Holocaust. The Tutsi ethnic group had been the rulers of Rwanda since the 900s. They ruled over a population which was 70% Hutu. The king of Rwanda was always Tutsi; the provincial governors were Hutu. The two groups coexisted peacefully until the entire area was conquered by Belgium in the nineteenth century. Belgium used the Tutsis to enforce their harsh rule. The Belgians required all citizens of Rwanda to carry papers which identified their ethnic affiliation. Privileges were meted out to the Tutsis. The Belgians told Hutus to submit to Tutsis. Belgians developed a system much like apartheid, with educated Tutsis as the administrators.
The Rwandan genocide affected the entire Great Lakes region of Central Africa, which is comprised of Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania. The country of Rwanda emptied and two million people were forced to flee to neighboring countries, which could not provide the shelter and help that was needed because of their own internal problems. The Rwandan genocide of 1994, in which so many hundreds of thousands of ethnic Tutsis were beaten, bludgeoned, and hacked to death by Hutu mobs and militias deployed by a criminal and corrupt Hutu government was finally stopped by a Tutsi-led rebel group which caused many Hutu to flee to Zaire (the name Mobutu gave to Congo).
President Mobutu of Zaire had considered the deposed Hutu government an ally and he welcomed the killers, who took up residence in refugee camps set up and supplied by international aid organizations. Many international observers suspected that the presence in Zaire of an army of trained killers would later lead to crises, and of course it did.
By 1996, the thousands of Rwandan Hutu refugees still in Zaire had begun to clash with the local Zairean ethnic Tutsis, some of whom had been in the country since the 1500s. Other Tutsis had immigrated to Zaire in the early 1960s. Together these Tutsis are called the Banyamulenge and they resented Hutu incursion into their land.
Mobutu exacerbated the tensions by attempting to expel segments of the Tutsi population to make way for the Hutus. The Tutsis rebelled and gained the support of much of the Zairean population and of the governments of Rwanda and Uganda. The rebel movement's leader was named Laurent Kabila. In just seven months the rebel alliance overcame the disinterested opposition of a weak Zairean army, marching triumphantly into Kinshasa in April 1997.
After 30 years under Mobutu, Zaire had ceased to function as a modern state. During the reign of Mobutu, there were no organized institutions to run the schools. A whole generation of children has grown up without any education at all. Kabila renamed the state Congo and began acting exactly like his predecessor. The government that is now in place in Congo offers no new hope toward reconciling the conflicts among the over 30 tribal groups.
The United States bears some responsibility for the cycles of violence and economic problems plaguing the continent. Throughout the Cold War, the United States delivered over $1.5 billion worth of weaponry to Africa. Many of the top U.S. arms clients --- Liberia, Somalia, Sudan and Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) --- have turned out to be the top areas of internal conflict in the 1990s. Violence, instability and economic collapse are rampant.
In Portland, Maine a group of evangelical Christians has responded to the crisis in Rwanda and Congo by forming Central Africa Vision. After the 1994 genocide, 70% of all Rwandan women were widowed. The figures for the eastern Congo are equally staggering. Pastor Mutima Peter of the African International Christian Fellowship has led several delegations of Mainers to the Great Lakes Region of Africa to witness the site of the terror and to work for reconciliation through conferences for pastors and church leaders from both Hutu and Tutsi tribal backgrounds, helping to bring about an end to the hatred and bitterness through forgiveness and love. Central Africa Vision 2000 assists in relief efforts with donations of medical supplies, food and clothing to those who are still living in refugee camps. An estimated 2 million people remain displaced.
In the near future Central Africa Vision 2000 will be in a partnership with Compassion International to sponsor children, especially orphans in need. Central Africa Vision 2000 in partnership with World Relief Corporation is making small business loans available to poor women (mostly widows) in Central Africa. The concept is Community Banking and has proved to be highly effective in eliminating poverty and preparing women for self-sufficiency. A contribution of $66 is all that is needed to help one poor woman begin her business. Each bank grants 30 loans to 30 women, who help each other get started. The loans cover a one-year period and are repaid in three four-month cycles.
Recently, Laurence Runyambo, a woman who works with widows and orphans in the eastern Congo, visited Portland to speak with groups and individuals about her work. She is currently working with 120 widows and their 600 children. The women and children are all victims of the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which raged from 1996-2001, leaving 2.5 million dead. Laurence spoke at the October 11 Memorial Service organized by Peace Action Maine at First Parish in Portland. She spoke of the empathy that all of the victims of the war in the Congo have for the victims of the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. She spoke about the staggering numbers of wounded, dead, and refugees in the Congo. On November 4, Laurence spoke at a dinner at the International Christian Fellowship on Lafayette Street in Portland. Several Peace Action Maine members attended. She showed examples of the beautiful tie-dyed fabric from which women in her project make clothing for sale. Her goal in Portland was to raise money for sewing machines, which enable the women to make more clothing.
Peace Action Maine members and friends who would like to help in this work in Central Africa can get in touch with Rev. Mutima Peter at 773-8811 or e-mail him at Mutima@juno.com
Source: Beyond Borders, the newsletter of Central Africa Vision 2000
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