Commodities are “great misfortune”

The archbishop of Bukavu in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Francois-Xavier Maroy Rusengo, sees the country's wealth of raw materials as the reason for the ongoing violence. "Raw materials are a great misfortune for us," he told the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" (Wednesday). Since the valuable mineral coltan had been found in the ground at the end of the 1990s, various rebel groups had occupied the country and tyrannized the population.

Congo itself does not benefit from the country's wealth of raw materials, he said. "In the long chain of commerce from prospecting in the mines to the finished product for the consumer, everyone involved should get something out of it. Although we are so rich in raw materials, we are one of the poorest countries in the world." There is no fair trade, he said, because the government has no control over the country. So far, the rebels have been able to bring their goods across the borders out of the country and sell them there for a lot of money.

"A war within a war"

Women in particular suffer from the prevailing violence, according to Rusengo. "The gangs would come to a village, murder and rob it. The boys are forcibly recruited as child soldiers, the women take them to the forest and turn them into sex slaves and gold prospectors."There they were often infected with HIV, suffered internal injuries from the rapes, became pregnant and were severely traumatized.

"It is a war in war: by breaking the women, you destroy the whole family, the community, the village." Often husbands refused to take back their abducted wives after they returned home. Referring to the role of the United Nations, Rusengo said he regrets that its mandate is limited to observation. The Congolese army itself lacks money to create "its own good army with good equipment". Without appropriate weapons, the motivation is not very high, "because the soldiers are afraid".