CHICAGO/TORONTO: Christian Peacemaker Teams begins three-month project in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo
November 28th, 2008
CPTnet
28 November 2008
CHICAGO/TORONTO: Christian Peacemaker Teams begins three-month project in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo
by Doug Pritchard
Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) is beginning a three-month project based in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) city of Goma. A team of four CPTers will arrive there in early December 2008. Groupe Martin Luther King, a Goma human rights organization, has invited CPT to join them in their work of promoting nonviolence and conflict resolution, monitoring human rights, and providing a peaceful presence in the conflict zone and the camps for internally displaced persons.
A resource-rich country, DRC contains large reserves of gold and diamonds, along with tin and coltan used in the electronics industry. The current conflict in the DRC is a resource war, complicated by civil war and the previous genocide in neighbouring Rwanda, which spilled across the border into the DRC.
Last year, a peace agreement was brokered among several armed groups in eastern DRC. This agreement has broken down in the past two months. The recent fighting among Laurent Nkunda’s militia, the Congolese army, UN peacekeepers, and other armed groups has killed additional people and displaced tens of thousands of persons around Goma. Relief agencies have found bringing food and supplies to those in need difficult because of battles that have continued in the countryside to the north of Goma.
Over five million people have died in the DRC from the armed conflict over the last ten years. Armed groups have used rape systematically against tens of thousands of women, leaving them traumatized, injured or dead, which has in turn, decimated family and social structures. The media in the global north have reported little about this violence or the role of foreign extractive industries in fuelling the conflict.
The initial CPT field team will consist of Cliff Kindy (North Manchester, IN, USA), Wendy Lehman (Chicago, IL, USA), Rosemarie Milazzo (Maryknoll, NY, USA), and Jane MacKay Wright (Providence Bay, ON, Canada). Doug Pritchard (Toronto, ON, Canada) is the Africa Great Lakes Project Support Coordinator. This three-month winter project follows three previous short-term CPT delegations to the region in 2005-2007.
28 November 2008
CHICAGO/TORONTO: Christian Peacemaker Teams begins three-month project in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo
by Doug Pritchard
Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) is beginning a three-month project based in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) city of Goma. A team of four CPTers will arrive there in early December 2008. Groupe Martin Luther King, a Goma human rights organization, has invited CPT to join them in their work of promoting nonviolence and conflict resolution, monitoring human rights, and providing a peaceful presence in the conflict zone and the camps for internally displaced persons.
A resource-rich country, DRC contains large reserves of gold and diamonds, along with tin and coltan used in the electronics industry. The current conflict in the DRC is a resource war, complicated by civil war and the previous genocide in neighbouring Rwanda, which spilled across the border into the DRC.
Last year, a peace agreement was brokered among several armed groups in eastern DRC. This agreement has broken down in the past two months. The recent fighting among Laurent Nkunda’s militia, the Congolese army, UN peacekeepers, and other armed groups has killed additional people and displaced tens of thousands of persons around Goma. Relief agencies have found bringing food and supplies to those in need difficult because of battles that have continued in the countryside to the north of Goma.
Over five million people have died in the DRC from the armed conflict over the last ten years. Armed groups have used rape systematically against tens of thousands of women, leaving them traumatized, injured or dead, which has in turn, decimated family and social structures. The media in the global north have reported little about this violence or the role of foreign extractive industries in fuelling the conflict.
The initial CPT field team will consist of Cliff Kindy (North Manchester, IN, USA), Wendy Lehman (Chicago, IL, USA), Rosemarie Milazzo (Maryknoll, NY, USA), and Jane MacKay Wright (Providence Bay, ON, Canada). Doug Pritchard (Toronto, ON, Canada) is the Africa Great Lakes Project Support Coordinator. This three-month winter project follows three previous short-term CPT delegations to the region in 2005-2007.
