There have been a number of protests this week by a Congolese contingent who have joined together to send a strong message to the UK public - they state we are just as responsible for the victims of the war in Africa if we do not stand up and demand change. Let me explain before you turn a blind eye...
On Saturday March 7, the day before International Women's Day, they arrived outside the Rwandan Embassy in London with placards stating "Stop the Rape!" to demand justice for the Congolese women raped and killed in the war - an ongoing conflict which has seen millions of Africans killed since 1996.
A few days later in Oxford, on Wednesday March 11, they planned to 'welcome' Rwandan President Paul Kagame with the clear cutthroat message of "Stop Terrorist Kagame!" Kagame was merely visiting Oxford Union, but wouldn't have been prepared for a group of passionate, uncompromising protestors looking to expose him as an instigator in the genocidal war - as he represents a Rwandan nation that has pillaged and raped Congo whilst occupying the eastern regions of the country over the past couple of years.
The actions of the outspoken group, consisting of faction Mbongwana (meaning 'change') and the Uhuru Movement, were made to call for a World Tribunal for Reparations to Africa and African people to indict all responsible for imperialist crimes against the Congolese people. And according to organiser Papy Makola, the people of the UK have just as much blood on their hands if we remain naïve as to our country's influence, and if we continue to use the companies who exploit the lives of the Congolese people every day, without ever really getting their hands too dirty.
At the protest at the Rwandan Embassy, Makola put down his placard for three minutes to tell Ctrl.Alt.Shift why their chanting was just as much for the British public as it was for the Rwandan government:
"One of our main aims is to highlight the facts to the British public, because not a lot of people know what's happening in the Congo. They think it's some kind of ethnic warfare between Hutus and Tutsis and any other ethnic groups in Africa, but we want to say what's happening in Congo is an international war against the people of Africa. You've got the UK and US pumping loads and loads of money into Rwandan, Ugandan and also Burundi regimes - who say nothing to explain their occupation of Congo, so we have understood that what's happening in Congo is an occupation to steal Congolese resources."
Keeping an eye out for police, he continued: "We know the British government has run out of gold reserves, we know that east Congo is full of gold reserves. We know Lake Kivu in east Congo is littered with natural gas and crude oil. So we can see that the war on Congo is not ethnic warfare, because we have multi-national companies based in this country such as Barclays Bank and Heritage Oil that are getting what they want from the war in Congo, so all they are doing is pumping the war on. People in this country can stop the war if they see that their own companies are not helping."
After this interview, of course Makola couldn't nor wouldn't expect every bypasser to snap their Visa Debit cards into pieces - but awareness and a collective want for change was definitely a fair ask. If you don't think so, consider the nightmarish facts of past and present and take a breather:
- 6 million Africans killed since August 1996
- 2 million displaced and forced to hide in hostile environment or live in concentration camps
- Thousands of child soldiers forcibly recruited, thousands more dead
- 40,000 African women raped every month, young girls and women gang raped in front of their community, women’s genitals mutilated...need I go on?
For more information visit www.uhurumovement.org/ [1]
Image: Flickr User sloth in london
Links:
[1] http://www.uhurumovement.org/