After Pope Francis celebrated one of his biggest Masses, with around a million attendees in DR Congo's capital, Kinshasa, he condemned the exploitation of Africa and urged the world to acknowledge the catastrophic things that have been done in the country and Africa at large and respect its people.

Shortly after landing in Kinshasa, Pope Francis delivered a speech full of stinging condemnation of the exploitation over centuries.

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Speaking in Italian, the 86-year-old said the DR Congo’s history had been hobbled by conflict and a history of foreign domination.

“Political exploitation gave way to an economic colonialism that was equally enslaving. As a result, this country, massively plundered, has not benefited adequately from its immense resources,” he told an audience of Congolese politicians and other dignitaries.

“It is a tragedy that these lands, and more generally the whole African continent, continue to endure various forms of exploitation. The poison of greed has smeared its diamonds with blood.”

"Hands off the DR Congo. Hands off Africa. Stop choking Africa: it is not a mine to be stripped or a terrain to be plundered," Francis said.

Despite its vast reserves of minerals, timber and freshwater, the DR Congo remains one of the poorest countries in the world. About two-thirds of the population lives on less than $2.15 a day, according to the World Bank.

Forgiveness is born from wounds

Pope Francis delivered a message of peace on Wednesday as he met survivors and victims of the atrocities of the war in eastern DR Congo.

He also urged Congolese to forgive those who have harmed them.

The crowd cheered when the Argentine pope greeted them in Lingala, one of four national languages widely spoken in the capital, Kinshasa. And they listened attentively as he urged them in his homily to open their hearts to forgiveness, citing the example of Christ who forgave those who betrayed him.

“He showed them his wounds because forgiveness is born from wounds,” Francis said. “It is born when our wounds do not leave scars of hatred, but become the means by which we make room for others and accept their weaknesses. Our weakness becomes an opportunity, and forgiveness becomes the path to peace.”

Referring to the decades of violence especially in the eastern DR Congo that has forced millions to flee, Francis stressed that forgiveness doesn’t mean pretending that nothing bad has happened. But he said it creates an “amnesty of the heart.”

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Conflict especially ravages the east of the country, where M23 rebels who are fighting for their right of existence as legitimate Congolese nationals have – in the past year resumed fighting after Kinshasa turned it back on several peace agreements it signed – and captured swathes of territory.

The biggest roadblock to peace is DR Congo’s refusal to implement the existing peace roadmaps, which include the Luanda roadmap and the Nairobi process that demands that the Congolese government disarm all armed groups and engage in dialogue toward a sustainable solution.

The Nairobi and Luanda processes were established in 2022 to help restore peace in eastern DR Congo, where more than 120 local and foreign armed groups roam freely, causing unjustified chaos.

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The violence in the east is connected to the long and complex fallout from the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in neighbouring Rwanda.

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The biggest mistake the Congolese government has chosen to make is to align itself with FDLR, a genocidal militia formed by remnants of the perpetrators of the genocide that claimed more than one million innocent lives in Rwanda nearly three decades ago.

The genocidal group that has been given space in eastern DR Congo to wreak havoc – plundering resources at will, killing people and raping as well as forcefully recruiting children – poses an existential security threat not only to Rwanda, but the entire great lakes region as well.

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“What great good it does us to cleanse our hearts of anger and remorse, of every trace of resentment and hostility!” he said.

Encouraged ongoing regional peace efforts

Francis, in his speech, encouraged ongoing regional peace efforts and said that “we cannot grow accustomed to the bloodshed that has marked this country for decades.”

The pope criticised rich countries for closing their eyes and ears to the tragedies unfolding in Congo and elsewhere in Africa.

“One has the impression that the international community has practically resigned itself to the violence devouring it [Congo]. We cannot grow accustomed to the bloodshed that has marked this country for decades, causing millions of deaths,” he said.

Francis will stay in Kinshasa until Friday morning, when he will fly to South Sudan, another country grappling with conflict and poverty.

He will be accompanied for that leg of his journey by the archbishop of Canterbury, leader of the global Anglican communion, and by the Church of Scotland moderator.

The religious leaders have described their joint visit as a “pilgrimage of peace”.

In South Sudan, the Pope is likely to call for the political leaders whose feet he famously kissed after a meeting at the Vatican to do much more to bring about peace in another troubled nation. New Times