|PIC1|A leading priest from the Democratic Republic of the Congo says that the illegal exploitation of the country’s valuable minerals is fuelling instability in the country and leading to increased fears about the rise of rebel attacks.

Fr Justin Nkunzi, justice and peace commission director of the Archdiocese of Bukavu, called on the Congolese government to ensure that trade from minerals, including gold, does not benefit militant groups responsible for violence in the country.

Speaking to Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need, he also called on industry leaders to improve transparency of the supply chain which would allow buyers to trace the source of their gold.

In an interview given during a visit to the UK, Fr Nkunzi said: “If you buy diamonds and gold from rebel held areas. It helps the rebels – they can buy weapons and guns and continue the war.”

Fr Nkunzi said: “If the UK government could assist our authorities to stamp out the illegal exploitation of our natural resources, it would be a way of helping Congolese people to build peace.”

DR Congo is beset by serious problems – including sexual violence, child soldiers, and refugees fleeing conflict – all of which are caused by rebel action which is funded by the mineral trade.

Fr Nkunzi said: “In our country many people suffer, you probably know the story of the dictator Mobutu [President from 1965 to 1997] which led us to many years of war and caused us many problems such as the rape of our women, social violence, child soldiers, and refugees. The church must be wherever someone asks us for our help.

“Everyone must do the best they can to bring peace, first within your heart, second in the family, then in all the community.”

He condemned the use of child soldiers – people as young as 10 who have been forced or coerced, sometimes at gun point – to join militia groups.

“Rebel groups have so many child soldiers. We must give support to these children, help them to leave militia camps in the forest and bring them back to the village," he said.

Yet it is difficult to reintegrate child soldiers back into the community.

He said: “If someone has used a gun and that is all he knows, it is not easy to take this away from him. Training must go on in the villages. In fact everywhere there is a need for training for these young people.”

Militia groups are also responsible for an increase in sexual violence, using the rape of women as a way of demoralising the local people.

Fr Nkunzi said: “For us it’s a kind of new terrorism. It is a strategy for destroying the family. It destroys everyone. It is a kind of ‘killing’.

“Sexual violence causes a big degree of trauma – individual trauma, communal trauma. The perpetrators know that the most effective ways of humiliating a man is to rape his wife.”

In 2007 John Holmes, UN under secretary general for humanitarian affairs, said: “The sexual violence in Congo is the worst in the world. The sheer numbers, the wholesale brutality, the culture of impunity — it’s appalling.”

Yet despite these serious problems Fr Nkunzi said the Church can play a vital role in bringing justice and peace to this war-torn nation: “The church must work to bring our people together and say that another way is possible – and speak out against impunity.”

He continued: “The work of the justice and peace commission is to especially help communities to come together after being torn apart and to support them to bring about change for themselves, their families, their communities."

“It is a ministry as Jesus said to bring peace and reconciliation everywhere.”

He stressed how the church’s social outreach to the communities that have been broken by violence must be rooted in prayer.

Fr Nkunzi said: “Our work wouldn’t be possible without the prayers and the peace that comes from Jesus and God. It is possible because Jesus is beginning the new way and we are following the new way in our country, many persons need to meet him in our country.

“We are all brothers in Africa. We must hear Jesus; we must try to build our region because God has given us a good country.”

He praised ACN for its help in the Congo, saying that the charity had helped many priests, sisters and congregations, who in turn are able to help other people.

He concluded saying: “May God bless all who help you to help us, together we can face many problems in our country.”