Pope Pulls No Punches
February 02, 23
Pope Francis pulled no punches when he landed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) earlier this week.
He condemned the "economic colonialism" of those who had plundered a country blessed with a wealth of diamonds and numerous other natural resources, but cursed with abject poverty, corruption, human rights abuses and a "forgotten genocide" that claimed more than six million lives, mostly from disease and malnutrition, between 1998 and 2008.
"The poison of greed has smeared its diamonds with blood," the 86-year-old pope told over 1,000 diplomats and civil and political leaders in the garden of the presidential palace in the capital Kinshasa.
The DRC in particular, and Africa in general, he said, should not be "a mine to be stripped or a terrain to be plundered".
The country was, he said, "truly a diamond of creation". But, addressing its residents directly, he said: "You, all of you, are infinitely more precious than any goods that springs from this fertile ground."
DRC has huge reserves of copper, cobalt, tantalum, tin, gold and other minerals, in addition to the millions of carats of diamonds its exports annually.
Total sales in 2020 were 12.2m carats, according to the latest Kimberley Process figures, netting $113m, but as much as a third of the country's rough production is reportedly smuggled.
Either way, the 100m population has benefitted little from diamonds or other valuables. It is one of the world's poorest countries, with a per capita gross national income of just $550 (US is $65,910 for comparison, and top-placed Bermuda is $117,740).
An estimated 5.7m people have been internally displaced due to conflict in DRC, and a quarter of the population face severe hunger.
The diamonds, and everything else of value, have been plundered to fund a series of conflicts, from the First Congo War (1996-1997) to the Second Congo War (1998-2003) and the hostilities that still rage today involving the Congolese army, the Rwanda-backed rebel group M23 and over 100 smaller militia.
Much of DRC's diamond mining is small-scale, dangerous and unregulated, with children as young as six forced to abandon their education and work long hours underground.
The Kimberley Process was established in 2003 to outlaw the so-called blood or conflict diamonds from DRC, Angola, Sierra Leone and other countries where they were used to finance wars against governments.
Within a year DRC had been expelled because it could not account for most of its exports, but it was re-admitted and went on to chair the group in 2011.
For the people of DRC - half of whom are Catholic - this papal visit, the first since 1985, will be a joyous occasion. But when the Holy Father leaves tomorrow (Friday), to head for neighboring South Sudan, will anything have changed?