DRC Catholics join 'March of Hope'

(August 03, 2012) More than 200,000 people from 47 Catholic dioceses of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) took part in a March of Hope on Wednesday in protest against what they call the 'balkanization' of the central African nation by a new armed rebellion in North Kivu allegedly backed by Rwanda. In the capital, Kinshasa, the march started from different parishes after morning Mass, converging toward the 14 deaneries of Kinshasa Archdiocese. Each parish delegation bore a banner with the same message: "No to the balkanization of the DRC, no to the plundering of our resources." Participants entrusted the country, and especially its eastern part, to the intercession of the Virgin Mary. The march took place without any incidents, thanks to the presence of the police forces. According to Radio Okapi, on 31 July in Kisangani, the eastern part of the town, representatives of different faiths and civil society launched an appeal for the conversion of Rwanda and its leaders to "rediscover in the DRC, the Congolese, a brother and a sister, to love and not to be attacked. "
Rwanda is accused of supporting the actions of the M23, the guerrilla movement that threw North Kivu into chaos and despair. Government troops and United Nations peacekeepers are struggling to halt the advancing rebels. The four-month-old uprising by the M23 rebel group has displaced some 470,000 civilians in the mineral-rich North Kivu province on the border with Uganda and Rwanda.