2024-03-02 17:52:00
Members of the Congolese diaspora in Switzerland demonstrated on Saturday in Geneva to defend the rights of their compatriots in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The event brought together some 600 people and took place peacefully.
‘Faced with crimes, flagrant injustices and systematic violations of the territory of the DRC, we proclaim our solidarity and our determination to act in defense of the sovereignty of our country and respect for territorial integrity,’ the organizers wrote in a manifesto.
And to strongly condemn all forms of aggression, oppression, discrimination and abuse which continue to darken the lives of millions of people in the DRC and particularly in the east of the country.
Gathered at noon on the Place des Nations, the participants marched to Place Neuve via the Pont du Mont-Blanc. They carried signs proclaiming ‘Stop genocide in Congo’, ’12 million deaths are enough’, ‘Rapes and threats and killings until when?’ or ‘Stop hoarding of resources’, noted a Keystone-ATS photographer on site.
The entire action, which brought together some 600 people, according to the Geneva police, took place in a ‘family atmosphere’, said its spokesperson Henny Martinoni. “No incident has been reported,” he stressed.
Resources at the heart of the conflict
The province of North Kivu, in the east of the DRC, has been in the grip of a conflict since the end of 2021 between the M23 (‘March 23 Movement’ – a predominantly Tutsi rebellion), supported by army units. Rwandan, to the Congolese army associated in particular with armed groups known as ‘patriots’.
The M23 has seized large swaths of the territory of this province. Its capital Goma, a conurbation of more than a million inhabitants, is currently practically cut off from all its land access routes to the interior of the country, to the north and west.
The DRC accuses Rwanda and its M23 ‘proxies’ of wanting to take control of the minerals of eastern Congolese. The M23, for its part, claims to be defending a threatened segment of the population and is demanding negotiations, which Kinshasa refuses, excluding discussions with ‘terrorists’.
/ATS
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