Massacre Survivors Sent to Prison

The victims of the barbarity of 30 August have not seen the last of their misfortune. The North Kivu military court handed down its verdict on Monday 9 October 2023 during a public hearing held at the Munzenze central prison in Goma. Several members of the sect and other passers-by and neighbours were sentenced to nearly 20 years in prison, while the leader of the movement was given life imprisonment.

The military justice system charged them with participation in an insurrectionary movement, criminal conspiracy and murder. Of the 115 defendants, the North Kivu military court convicted 63 and acquitted 52 others.

Major-magistrate Amsini Lazare, president of the Goma military tribunal, handed down a life sentence to eight defendants, including the main defendant, Ephrem Bisimwa, leader of the "Natural Judaic Messianic Faith towards the Nations - Uwezo wa Neno" sect. Several dozen other people, including some of his followers, eight of whom were women, were also sentenced to between 10 and 20 years' imprisonment "for their role in calling for demonstrations to be held on 30 August", according to the military courts.

A look back at the carnage wrought by certain elements of the army

A mystico-religious sect called Foi naturelle judaïque et messianique vers les nations (Natural Judaic and Messianic Faith Towards the Nations) had planned to demonstrate on 30 August to demand that the United Nations Organisation Mission for the Stabilisation of the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO) and the regional force of the East African Community (EAC-RF) leave the country. 

A few hours before the demonstration was due to take place (i.e. 24 hours before), the mayor of the town notified the prophet and his followers that the demonstration was not authorised. BISIMWA retorted and told the public that nothing and no-one was going to stop him. 

In the early hours of Wednesday 30 August (at 4 a.m.), the first Read was launched against the radio installations, reconnaissance drones in the air, and elements in military uniform burst in. At dawn, "6 people were killed, several wounded and the prophet was taken away by the Congolese soldiers", says a member of the church. Another operation was launched between 6am and 8am at the sect's church, and it proved to be the most deadly. In the end, at least 57 unarmed civilians were killed by the army that day, according to civil society sources.

The military governor of North Kivu, Lieutenant General Constant NDIMA, was urgently summoned to the Congolese capital by his superiors for consultation on 04 August. After a few days, Peter Chirimwami was appointed as interim governor.

A highly critical judgement

This decision seems not to have met with the approval of many Goma residents. Espoir Ngalukiye, a former activist with the Lutte pour le Changement - LUCHA movement, denounced the sentences. "While the population was expecting compensation and acquittal for the victims of the carnage of 30 August, military injustice has just condemned the victims of the carnage of 30 August,

Military injustice has just condemned our wazalendo compatriots, including their leader Ephraim Bisimwa. This iniquitous judgement is unacceptable. It was handed down against innocent victims instead of condemning the real executioners, including Mr Constant Ndima, who should be sentenced to death", he said.

Ephraïm Bisimwa has promised to appeal against the ruling to the military court.

By Akilimali Saleh Chomachoma - in Goma


Kabila’s New Years Eve Message to the Congolese People: We Will Crush You!

In the tradition of liberation theology, faith leaders in the Democratic Republic of Congo called on the Congolese people to stand up (#Telema) and reclaim their country. They appealed to the population to participate in a peaceful march throughout the country on Sunday, December 31st, 2017. They instructed the people to march in their local neighborhoods while reciting bible verses and incantations. Civil society, citizens movements formations and the opposition all responded to the call from the faith leaders.

The primary demand of the faith leaders is for Joseph Kabila - who has overstayed his constitutional mandate which expired on December 19, 2016 - to declare that he will not run in the next elections. In addition, they called for the unconditional release of political prisoners, the return of exiled political figures, opening of media that have been shuttered, along with a number of other demands to ultimately ease the tense political climate.

A more radical call came from the Congolese youth, civil society and the opposition. They want Kabila to step down. They have no faith that he will organize elections and even if he does, they believe that the elections will certainly be rigged.

Sunday’s march is a result of a year of frustration for the faith leaders, particularly Catholic Church leaders belonging to the National Episcopal Conference of Congo (CENCO in French). They facilitated talks between Joseph Kabila and opposition that resulted in a New Year’s Eve deal on December 31, 2016. The deal gave Kabila an additional year to organize elections by December 2017. The CENCO was widely seen as the entity that prevented a clash between the Kabila regime and the Congolese people in December of 2016.

The United States under the leadership of President Barack Obama and other Western leaders had put enormous pressure on the opposition to abort a planned demonstration at the end of Kabila’s term (December 19, 2016) if he did not step down. To the chagrin of many Congolese, The Obama Administration had pushed for Kabila to organize elections in 2017, even though Kabila’s term expired in December of 2016. It appears that the Obama Administration took the path of least resistance – let Kabila stay and have the next Administration deal with the issue - with less than a couple months left in Obama’s presidency.

CENCO stepped in to be the arbitrator between the opposition and the Kabila regime. However, another year has passed and Kabila refused to organize elections per the December 31, 2016 deal. Kabila spent the past year strengthening his hand by arresting certain opposition figures and buying off others. One of the major weaknesses of the Congolese political class is that it lacks any clear political ideology and can wind up on either side at any moment – opposition or majority – depending on the offer from the regime.

The Trump Administration has pursued a similar policy path to the Obama Administration.  After US Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley visited the Congo in October, the U.S. called for elections to be held in 2018 with Kabila remaining as President. Although the electoral commission finally published an electoral calendar that set the election date for December 2018, the people have very little faith that elections will be held and even if they are held, they will likely be rigged in favor of Kabila’s presidential majority coalition.

The major regional and international bodies (United Nations, European Union, African Union and Southern African Development Community - SADC) have aligned with the December 2018 calendar putting them at odds with the masses of Congolese who want to see Kabila gone and a new electoral commission set up to organize free and fair elections, which are impossible to organize under Kabila and the current electoral commission. SADC has been a key player led by Jacob Zuma who has been a staunch supporter of Joseph Kabila, many believe in large part because of economic interest his family has in Congo. Kabila granted Zuma’s nephew, Khulubuse Zuma a R100 billion oil fortune in the northeast of the Congo.

The signal these regional and continental bodies, along with the West, have sent is that as long as elections are held, they will be satisfied even if Kabila’s majority coalition rigs the results and maintain the same set of actors in power. The Congo holds the distinction of having every one of its elected officials at the federal level staying in office beyond their legal mandates. Renowned Congolese medical doctor and moral voice for the Congo, Dr Denis Mukwege says, all elected institutions in the country are illegal. Lacking legitimacy among the people, the Kabila regime has ruled by fear and force. For all intents and purposes, millions of people are being held hostage by an illegal regime that has militarized public space throughout the country.

Early reports from the New Year’s eve march reinforce the nature of the repressive rule by the Kabila regime. In an attempt to prevent the march, security forces and tanks were dispatched in major cities; roadblocks were set-up; tanks blocked entrance to churches in some areas; in other areas police were stationed to prevent access to houses of worship; and some church doors were sealed and/or locked by the security forces.

For those who succeeded in making it to church, the brutality was raw and naked. Parishioners were met with tear gas fired inside the church, stun grenades, live bullets, choir boys were arrested and pastors were beaten and jailed. The brutality and massive demonstration of force against unarmed civilians left little doubt that we are dealing with a people under occupation by an illegal, illegitimate military regime. Major media outlets have reported three dead and many arrested.

Meanwhile the organizers of the march have claimed about a dozen dead, fourteen seriously injured and about 20 people arrested including two pastors and many churches ransacked and damaged. Video and photo documentation of the repression is slowly surfacing due to the fact the government issued a decree the night before to all major telecommunications operators to shut down Internet and SMS services across the country.

Faith leaders and people of conscience throughout Africa should be outraged that 80 million people in the heart of the continent are facing such depraved brutality from a regime that has surpassed its constitutional mandate and lacks legitimacy among the people. In spite of the Kabila regime’s repression and the brutality, the people are as determined as ever to rid themselves of Kabila and his accomplices. They have responded to the faith leaders’ call to take their destiny into their own hands. The New Year Eve’s events have only strengthened the resolve of the people to resist until a new order is installed in the Congo by the masses of Congolese.

Congo: One Hundred Years of Colonialism, Dictatorship and War (1908 – 2008)

Saturday, November 15, 2008 marked the 100-year anniversary of the removal of the Congo from King Leopold II of Belgium as his own personal property. Global outrage of the King’s brutal rule resulted in his losing the Congo treasure trove on November 15, 1908.

Leopold II accumulated spectacular wealth for himself and the Belgian state during his 23-year dominion (1885 – 1908) over the Congo. During this period an estimated 10 million Congolese lost their lives while Leopold systematically looted the Congo of its rubber and ivory riches. Congo was handed over to Belgium who ruled as a colonial power from 1908 to 1960. Congo finally got its independence on June 30, 1960 when Patrice Emery Lumumba, its first democratically elected prime minister took office. Unfortunately, the western powers, primarily the United States and Belgium could not allow a fiercely independent African to consolidate his power over such a geo-strategic prize as the Congo. He was removed from power in a western backed coup within weeks and assassinated on January 17, 1961. Belgium apologized for its role in Lumumba’s assassination in 2002 and the US still downplays its role in Lumumba’s assassination. The US replaced Lumumba with the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko and backed him until he was overthrown in 1997. The overthrow of Mobutu unleashed an ongoing resource war that has caused deep strife and unbearable suffering for the Congolese people, particularly the women and the children. It is estimated that Congo has lost nearly six million people since the 1996 invasion by Rwanda and Uganda with support from the United States and other Western nations.

A century later, Congo is at another crossroads. In spite of the advances in technology and the shrinking of the world, it is curious that there is such silence around the suffering of the Congolese people due to the exploitation of powerful corporate and foreign forces beyond its people’s immediate control. Unlike the early 1900s, remarkably, today there are few if any voices the likes of Mark Twain who wrote King Leopold’s Soliloquy, Joseph Conrad, The Heart of Darkness (PDF) (Often misread as Congo or Africa being dark but he was referring to the dark hearts of the exploiters of the Congo), and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle of Sherlock Holmes fame who wrote Crime in the Congo. The Congo Reform movement that drew from the work of African Americans such as William Sheppard and George Washington Williams and led by European figures such as Robert Casement and E.D. Morel gave birth to the modern international human rights movement.

One hundred years later we are again calling on the global community to be at the side of the Congolese. This time, there is one fundamental difference, the Congolese are agents in this narrative and the call this time is not a hand-over to a colonial power or neo-colonial institutions but rather to the people of the Congo.

The clarion call is for the combating of the forces (local elites and rebels, foreign governments, foreign corporations, and multi-lateral institutions) that have the Congolese people in a death trap. The charity prism of the humanitarian industry is not the answer. It only perpetuates dependency and dis-empowerment. Should Congo be truly liberated, the Darfurizaton (emptying of agency from the afflicted people) of the global movement in support of the Congo
must be avoided at all cost. Congolese must be agents rather than objects in the pursuit of the control of their land and their lives. The sovereignty of the people and control and ownership of the riches of their land is the fundamental human right for which we must advocate. It is a call not only for the Congo but the entire African continent.

Becomea part of the global movement to Break the Silence as the Congolese pursue
true sovereignty and liberty.

Kambale Musavuli, Student Coordinator, FOTC
Maurice Carney, Executive Director, FOTC


Useful links:
Rapper and Spoken Word Artist
Omekongo's "Welcome to the Congo
"
Powerpoint Primer on the
History of the Congo (PPT)

Dan Rather All Mines Report on I-Tunes
FAIR on media coverage of Congo

Huffington Post Journalist Says Next President Must Address Congo Crisis

The current tragedy in the Democratic Republic of Congo is not an "ethnic conflict," as reported by the US State Department and seconded by the candidates. It is a proxy war, fueled by international competition for the vast mineral wealth of Congo.

Over ten years of war propagated on a scramble for the vast resource wealth of the Democratic Republic of Congo has intensified in recent weeks as "rebel" leader General Laurent Nkunda (CNDP) intensified his offensive against the regular Congolese army (FARDC) and threatened to take the city of Goma, headquarters of MONUC, the United Nations Mission to Congo.

Read entire article and make comments so that the Huffington Post can continue to report on the Congo in an in depth manner.