Day: February 5, 2023

BUJUMBURA (Burundi)— East African leaders called for an immediate ceasefire in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, at an extraordinary summit called to find ways of calming the raging conflict.

The Saturday talks were hosted in Burundi by the seven-nation East Africa Community (EAC), which is leading mediation efforts to end the fighting in the vast central African nation.

A resurgent rebel group known as the M23 has taken swathes of land in the mineral-rich east and fighting is continuing despite a peace roadmap hammered out in the Angolan capital in July last year and the deployment of an EAC force in November.

The heads of state called for an “immediate ceasefire by all parties” and the withdrawal of all armed groups, including foreign, in a statement issued after the summit.

They directed army chiefs to meet within a week to set timelines for the withdrawal, while also highlighting “the need for enhanced dialogue among all the parties”.

Both present in Burundi’s lakeside economic hub of Bujumbura were DRC President Felix Tshisekedi and President Paul Kagame of Rwanda.

Kigali has been accused of backing the M23 in a conflict that has sent many Congolese fleeing their homes and exacerbated regional tensions.

Tens of thousands of people are “caught in the vice of armed violence” in the face of the recent advance of M23 rebels in the east, the UN’s humanitarian coordination office in DRC said in a statement Saturday.

In a statement ahead of the summit, the Congolese presidency had called forthe EAC force to be made more “offensive” to tackle the rebels.

It protested that despite the terms of the Luanda roadmap the M23 and its allies had not withdrawn but rather “expanded their areas of occupation”.

Kagame’s visit, his first to Burundi since 2013, also suggested some rapprochement between the Great Lakes neighbours whose relations have long been frosty.

The EAC meeting took place shortly after a visit by Pope Francis to Kinshasa, where he met victims of the conflict and condemned the “inhumane violence” and “brutal atrocities” taking place.

Militias have plagued the mineral-rich eastern DRC for decades, many of them a legacy of regional wars that flared during the 1990s and the early 2000s.

Since November 2021, the M23 has seized chunks of territory and come within miles of the east’s main commercial hub Goma.

The EAC decided to create a military force to pacify eastern Congo in 2022, with the first troops arriving in Goma in November.

Kenya’s President William Ruto said the security situation remained “fragile and regressing as more and more civilians bear the burden of the conflict”.

He also said there was a need for action to protect the sovereignty of Congo’s mineral riches, a key source of its myriad conflicts.

The DRC is awash with minerals and precious stones, but the decades of war and chronic mismanagement mean that little of the vast wealth trickles down to the population of some 100 million.

Kinshasa’s accusations that Kigali is backing the M23 are supported by UN experts, the United States and other Western countries, but Kigali denies the charge.

Last week, Qatar had planned to host a meeting between Tshisekedi and Kagame, but diplomats said the Congolese leader refused to attend.

Tensions between the two countries were inflamed last week when Rwandan forces opened fire at a Congolese fighter jet they said had violated Rwandan airspace.

Kinshasa described it as an attack that amounted to “an act of war”.

Meanwhile, the leaders of Burundi and Rwanda greeted each other warmly in Bujumbura after years of tempestuous relations and accusations of interference in their internal affairs.

In 2020, Kagame urged the then newly elected President Evariste Ndayishimiye to reset diplomatic ties but his overture was rejected as “hypocritical”.

Burundi has accused Rwanda of harbouring those behind a failed 2015 coup that plunged the country into violent chaos.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

Pope Francis, the head of the Anglican Communion and top Presbyterian minister together denounced the criminalization of homosexuality on Sunday and said gay people should be welcomed by their churches.

The three Christian leaders spoke out on LGBTQ rights during an unprecedented joint airborne news conference returning home from South Sudan, where they took part in a three-day ecumenical pilgrimage to try to nudge the young country’s peace process forward.

They were asked about Francis’ recent comments to The Associated Press, in which he declared that laws that criminalize gay people were “unjust” and that “being homosexual is not a crime.”

South Sudan is one of 67 countries that criminalizes homosexuality, 11 of them with the death penalty. LGBTQ advocates say even where such laws are not applied, they contribute to a climate of harassment, discrimination and violence.

Francis referred his Jan. 24 comments to the AP and repeated that such laws are “unjust.” He also repeated previous comments that parents should never throw their gay children out of the house.

“To condemn someone like this is a sin,” he said. “Criminalizing people with homosexual tendencies is an injustice.”

“People with homosexual tendencies are children of God. God Loves them. God accompanies them,” he added.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, recalled that LGBTQ rights were very much on the current agenda of the Church of England, and said he would quote the pope’s own words when the issue is discussed at the church’s upcoming General Synod.

“I wish I had spoken as eloquently and clearly as the pope. I entirely agree with every word he said,” Welby said.

Recently, the Church of England decided to allow blessings for same-sex civil marriages but said same-sex couples could not marry in its churches. The Vatican forbids both gay marriage and blessings for same-sex unions.

Welby told reporters that the issue of criminalization had been taken up at two previous Lambeth Conferences of the broader Anglican Communion, which includes churches in Africa and the Middle East where such anti-gay laws are most common and often enjoy support by conservative bishops.

The broader Lambeth Conference has come out twice opposing criminalization, “But it has not really changed many people’s minds,” Welby said.

The Rt. Rev. Iain Greenshields, the Presbyterian moderator of the Church of Scotland who also participated in the pilgrimage and news conference, offered an observation.

“There is nowhere in my reading of the four Gospels where I see Jesus turning anyone away,” he said. “There is nowhere in the four Gospels where I see anything other than Jesus expressing love to whomever he meets.

“And as Christians, that is the only expression that we can possibly give to any human being, in any circumstance.”

The Church of Scotland allows same-sex marriages. Catholic teaching holds that gay people must be treated with dignity and respect, but that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered.”

Source: Voice of America

One U.N. peacekeeper was killed in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday when a helicopter operated by the peacekeeping force came under fire while in the air, the U.N. mission called MONUSCO said.

The helicopter was able to land in the provincial capital Goma. It was attacked after taking off from the city of Beni in the early afternoon.

One peacekeeper was also severely wounded in the attack, MONUSCO said in a statement, which did not say who might be responsible. The statement did not say what weapon was fired at the helicopter or what caused the casualties.

A U.N. peacekeeping mission of around 18,200 personnel has been deployed in eastern Congo since taking over from a previous U.N. operation in 2010. Its mandate includes supporting the Congolese government’s effort to stabilize a region racked by rebel violence.

Eight peacekeepers were killed last year when their helicopter crashed in a part of North Kivu province, where the Congolese army was fighting a rebel group known as the M23.

Source: Voice of America