Pope Francis' knee problems forced him to postpone his trip to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan, initially scheduled for last July, but Jorge Mario Bergoglio finally landed on Tuesday in Kinshasa, where he was received by hundreds of thousands of people. who took to the streets. This is how Francis begins, among crowds, songs and banners, his tenth trip to Africa, the 40th of his pontificate, in a six-day visit where he will try to focus on two of the planet's forgotten conflicts.
In his first speech of the trip, at the Palace of the Nation in Kinshasa, Francis launched a strong denunciation against the "economic colonialism" that he believes is "just as enslaving" after political colonialism. “Get your hands off Africa! Stop suffocating her!” the Pontiff exclaimed, to the applause of those present. Bergoglio gave the example of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a country "abundantly depredated" that "is not capable of sufficiently benefiting from its immense resources and has reached the paradox that the fruits of its own land make it a foreigner for its inhabitants" .
“Africa is not a mine to be exploited or a land to be plundered. May Africa be the protagonist of its own destiny. May the world remember the disasters committed over the centuries to the detriment of local populations and not forget this country and this continent, ”she insisted, in a strong message against political abuses on the continent.
The aim of this trip is to bring a message of peace to both the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan, but also to draw international attention to some of the worst humanitarian crises in Africa, one of the few places in the world where the number of faithful of the Catholic Church. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, half of its 90 million inhabitants are Catholic, and it has more than 6,000 priests, 10,000 nuns and more than 4,000 seminarians, 3.6% of the total in the world.
Francis arrives in the Democratic Republic of Congo at a time of escalation in the conflict fueled by rebel militias and attacks by Army soldiers in the east of the country, something that has forced the cancellation of a stop in Goma initially planned as it was considered too dangerous. The President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Felix Tshisekedi, wanted to take advantage of the visit's loudspeaker to denounce the "complicit silence" of the international community in this part of the territory where, he said, armed groups operate "by foreign powers avid for minerals What is in our subsoil?
The world, according to the Pope, has long since resigned itself to the violence that has devoured the African people. This was agreed by President Tshisekedi, who said that, while the international community has remained silent, "more than 10 million people have been horribly murdered." According to the United Nations, around 5.7 million people are internally displaced in the country and 26 million suffer from famine.
Part of these conflicts have been caused by the exploitation of mineral deposits such as coltan, used to make mobile phones or computers. Democratic Republic of the Congo has some of the largest reserves of diamonds, gold, cobalt or lithium. The Pontiff wanted to cite in particular the case of diamonds "bloodied" by "the poison of greed. A drama, he has added, "to which the most economically advanced world tends to close its eyes, ears and mouth."
The Pope's trip continues this Wednesday, when he will celebrate a mass at the Kinshasa airport that is expected to be attended by a million people. Afterwards, he will meet with victims of violence in the east and on Friday he will fly to South Sudan, another country ravaged by violence.
