Pope Francis has denounced the “poison of greed” driving conflicts in Africa, saying the rich world needs to realise that people are more precious than the minerals in the earth beneath them. Many tens of thousands of people cheered as he travelled from the airport into the capital Kinshasa in his popemobile, with some breaking away to chase it while others chanted and waved flags. But the joyous mood, one of the most vibrant welcomes of his foreign trips, turned sombre when the 86-year-old pope spoke to dignitaries at the presidential palace. He condemned “terrible forms of exploitation, unworthy of humanity” in Congo, where vast mineral wealth has fuelled war, displacement and hunger “Hands off the Democratic Republic of the Congo, hands off Africa. Stop choking Africa: it is not a mine to be stripped or a terrain to be plundered,” Francis said. Congo has some of the world’s richest deposits of diamonds, gold, copper, cobalt, tin, tantalum, and lithium, but those have stoked conflict between militias, government troops, and foreign invaders. Mining has also been linked to inhumane exploitation of workers, including children and environmental degradation. “It is a tragedy that these lands, and more generally the whole African continent, continue to endure various forms of exploitation,” the pope said, reading his speech in Italian while seated. “The poison of greed has smeared its diamonds with blood,” he said, referring to Congo specifically. Compounding the country’s problems, eastern Congo has been plagued by violence connected to the long and complex fallout from the 1994 genocide in neighbouring Rwanda. Congo accuses Rwanda of backing the M23 rebel group fighting government troops in the east. Rwanda denies this. An estimated 5.7 million people are internally displaced in Congo and 26 million face severe hunger, largely because of the impact of armed conflict, according to the United Nations. About half of Congo’s population of 90 million are Roman Catholics and the Church plays a crucial role in running schools and health facilities in the sprawling central African country, as well as promoting democracy. The pope criticised rich countries for ignoring the tragedies unfolding in Congo and elsewhere in Africa. “One has the impression that the international community has practically resigned itself to the violence devouring it (Congo). “We cannot grow accustomed to the bloodshed that has marked this country for decades, causing millions of deaths,” he said.
On Wednesday, Francis will meet victims of violence from the east after celebrating mass at a Kinshasa airport. The pope will stay in Kinshasa until Friday morning, when he will fly to South Sudan, another African country grappling with conflict and poverty. In a first, he will be accompanied for that leg of his journey by the Archbishop of Canterbury, leader of the global Anglican Communion, and by the Church of Scotland Moderator.
The religious leaders have described their joint visit as a “pilgrimage of peace” to the world’s youngest nation. South Sudan gained independence in 2011 from predominantly Muslim Sudan after decades of conflict. Two years later inter-ethnic conflict spiralled into a civil war that killed 400,000 people. A 2018 deal stopped the worst of the fighting.
