How long can we still be patient as the DRCongo Government demands: Three years of war now

Dear Colleagues,

The current war of Aggression in North Kivu, the Democratic Republic of Congo seems to be taken lightly by the Government, this war has forced more than 4million people who fled from their home villages and are now living in dire situations in Internally Displaced Camps where they lack everything. The Government is totally absent and relief organizations have not managed to respond to the needs of people.
The Government for the last three years since April 2021 up to now continues to tell us to wait, to have hope and to trust in the Government which is much willing to restore peace and stability in the country.
As organization we are engaged on advocacy at various levels, with IDPs we are working on solidarity and pacific cohabitation, and relief aid assistance, their security and creating better conditions while they are in camps, including the reduction of poverty through income generating activities. With the host community we are focusing on actions of solidarity, sharing rights information and mitigating negative attitudes against IDPs, to the Government we are advocating for the end of war, and the return of people in their villages, to improve the current conditions and to restore security in camps, to the aid workers were are advocating for relief aid to all people, accountability and transparency in the whole aid relief, and to include peace activities in their interventions, to the international community to prioritize peace and the end of war between DRC and Rwanda especially the withdraw of Rwandan forces in DRC.

We are currently concerned about the attitudes of the Democratic Republic of Congo Government which is not giving us assurance about the end of the war, we do object the current government military strategy of withdrawal from the zones and leave to Rwandan forces, we are also objecting the current government communication strategy of calling upon people to be docile and patient. Here is our reaction to the Minister of Internal Affairs. Our view is to empower people to seek accountability and better services to the government.

OUR PRESS RELEASE ON HIS EXCELLENCY JACQUEMAIN SHABANI MINISTER OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS: HOW LONG WILL WE TRUST THE CONGOLESE GOVERNMENT TO END THE WAR? 3 YEARS LATER HAS THIS CONGOLESE GOVERNMENT NOT STILL FAILED?

COJESKI North Kivu spends more of its time in the Camps for Internally Displaced Persons in and around Goma, we often cry every day for the misery these Congolese people are going through, and even in such a situation, alongside us is the silence which reigns in the Churches in North Kivu, in DRCongo and in the Diaspora in relation to the situation of IDPs, a complicit silence.
To still ask your people to have confidence in you and to hope in you is an insult to the situation of these people, it is an abuse of the unjust suffering that these Internally Displaced Persons are going through. This position of the Congolese Government should be denounced, these Internally Displaced Persons do expect concrete actions from us to relieve their suffering and we have the obligation to do so. Unfortunately instead of having a Government that may work in this way, we are being told to be patient and have hope.
The Deputy Prime Minister of the Interior, His Excellency Jacquemain Shabani, asked us yesterday Monday July 15th, 2024 during a press briefing in Butembo to maintain hope and confidence in the Congolese Government and the FARDC, except that he would have forgotten that the FARDC and the Congolese Government must deserve this trust and should no longer continue to abuse our trust which we placed in them since 2021. We elected this Government in December 2023 to provide peace and security through serious military operations against Rwanda and M23 rebels in order to bring back all areas that are being controlled by Rwanda now, but it was not to listen to speeches of good intentions as it is now. We wonder if those who ask us to keep hope and to trust them can come and live for just one week in the Internally Displaced Persons Camps to see if afterward they can still make such a speech.
Since the start of this aggression in November 2021, the Congolese Government has always expressed the desire to recover the areas taken by Rwanda but on the ground it is the Rwandan Army which is advancing, since 2021 we have been asked to trust the Congolese Government, we did it but the Congolese Government does not protect us either against Rwandan barbarity or against the crimes committed by our security services which should nevertheless protect us. These Concerts of crackling bullets in Camps for Internally Displaced Persons and here at Goma every day, these assassinations, these burglaries of houses, these taking by force of telephones, these restrictions on traffic movements in the evening, this extremely expensive life, … deserve resistance,
We are calling upon all Active Forces of the Society to urgently carry out an evaluation of the Defense Policy of the Congolese Government in order to take common and clear positions. It is time to come out of silence to put pressure on the Congolese Government, at present we have not yet even consolidated our achievements.
We shall not feel proud of helping IDPs with food, this is necessary and we need to do it now, but we shall feel happier when we see all these IDPs going back to their homes and by ensuring that no one is forced to flee his/her home.
Kulihoshi Musikami Pecos,
Goma, July 16th, 2024
Provincial Coordinator of COJESKI North Kivu
Tel: +243853191163
Email: cojeskinordkivu@gmail.com
Website: www.cojeskinordkivu.org
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