SAFCAM Communique #41 English

SAFCAM Communique #41          27/02/2021

Dear Subscribers

Deaths in Eastern DRC

Last Monday, the Italian Ambassador Luca Attanasio, bodyguard Vittorio Iacovacci and their driver Mustapha Milambo, lost their lives in an attack in the Congo. As well as being an extraordinary person, Luca was a great friend and supporter of several charities and actively collaborated with their initiatives in the Congo. Just a few days previously, Luca personally delivered a life-saving drug to a girl in a very serious condition. There are countless initiatives in support of the needy which he facilitated. He and his wife founded the Mamma Sofia organisation, which supports homeless children and orphanages in Congo.

Luca was a devout Catholic. He leaves behind three young daughters, twins aged two and one aged four, and his wife. As for Vittorio, he was due to get married in a few months’ time.

The media put the spotlight on this tragedy for a few days, and then forgets the ongoing conflict.

I allow myself two considerations. An assassinated Italian ambassador makes headlines. In North and South Kivu there are hundreds of people who are killed every year by armed groups. Unfortunately, they do not make the news ... We hope that this assassination pushes the authorities to take measures to pacify our region and all of Eastern Congo.

In various regions, armed groups recruit their fighters from among young people from the interior, who live in misery and have no prospects for a future. A few years ago, when I was in Goma, the teachers had started a strike movement for wage claims. Some older boys, who had been in the armed groups, threatened them: if you don't let us study, we shall go back into the bush. The pacification of eastern Congo will come when there are conditions for life and development for all.

Ambassador Attanasio was very sensitive to this aspect and was killed while he was on his way to visit relief and development works.

Fr Piero Gavioli sdb, long term missionary in RDC, presently based in Bukavu, met the Ambassador on that day and invited him to visit the Salesian works the next time he came to the region. Piero writes the following about the situation:

“In our own small way, the Salesians in Goma, Bukavu and Uvira, welcome vulnerable children into vocational schools who could, otherwise, be attracted by armed groups. We offer them a trade and a prospect for the future. It is our contribution to building peace in eastern Congo.”

Fr Camiel who was provincial of the Salesian Province in the Congo adds:

The world knows very well that there are all kinds of armed groups crisscrossing the Eastern Congolese territory because there is so much mineral wealth to be collected. Many countries want a piece of the "cake", and criminal looting persists unabated. Countless men, women, young people and children have been victims of the violence perpetrated in the region. And this has continued for decades! The Congolese population has suffered international pillage for years! The powers that be keep complaining about it, but certain vested interest and corrupt kickbacks prevents them taking preventive measures.

What can we do to remedy this? Of course, there are individual initiatives, communities, religious institutes and NGOs committed to halting this tragedy. They do so at the risk of their lives. But, do the "world", the "countries concerned" and the "companies” or “cartels" involved in this "deliberately maintained chaos" really WANT a turnaround in the situation? The dignity of human beings is at stake: too many human beings have been massacred, raped, mutilated and traumatized. Can we hope that beyond "words" and "speeches", the time will come when one chooses - by concrete acts – to choose LIFE and not DEATH, a BLESSING and not a CURSE, JUSTICE not BRIBERY, HAPPINESS and not MISERY?

See also on the SAFCAM website the story of Lea Sharibu – one of the Chibok girls in Nigeria. 2 days ago, another 317 teenaged girls were kidnapped in Nigeria by Boko Haram. When will these barbaric actions ever be defeated!?

But despite all the negative news, we are Moved by HOPE

Hope has mostly been the poor relation among the theological virtues.

Charles Péguy has a beautiful image in this regard. He described the three theological virtues - faith, hope and charity/love - as three sisters: two grown-up sisters and one still a child. They walk together along the road holding hands, the two older ones at the side, and the little girl in the centre. The little girl is of course Hope. All who observe them imagine that it is the two grown-up ones who drag the little one in the middle forward!

They are mistaken! It is the little girl Hope who drags the two bigger sisters, because if hope stops everything stops. We all need to become “partners of the Hope-child,” as Péguy said. It implies that we allow God to delude or even ‘deceive’ us on this earth as often as He wishes. More than that, it means being happy deep down in some remote corner of our heart, that God didn’t listen to us, because, in this way, He has allowed us to display another proof of our hope, to make yet another act of hope, which is increasingly more difficult for us each time. He has granted us a much greater grace than the one we asked for: the grace to keep hoping in Him. And he has all eternity to let us “excuse Him” for his delay!

Charles Péguy (1873-1914), poet and Catholic mystic, died on 5^th September 1914, killed by a bullet to his head, on the eve of the first Battle of the Marne (France) during WWI.

God bless

Camiel and François