Eastern Africa

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO (DRC); SHALOM CENTER FOR CONFLICT RESOLUTION AND RECONCILIATION (SCCRR) OUTREACH INTERVENTION FOR PEACE – A DREAM THAT IS BECOMING TRUE

By July 18, 2023 July 24th, 2023 No Comments

By:  Rev. Dr. Emmanuel Tembo

(From the Diocese of Butembo-Beni, North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo)

Since its inception in 2009 through the vision and charism of Rev. Dr. Patrick Devine, Shalom Center for Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation (SCCRR) invests in peace, development, and reconciliation-oriented programmes at the grassroots level in Eastern Africa. As far as Eastern Africa is concerned, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) acceded to the East African Community (EAC) Treaty on 8 April 2022, becoming a full member on 11 July 2022.[1] The DRC membership in the EAC is certainly timely for Shalom-SCCRR as it expands its interventions on conflict transformation skills and peacebuilding techniques to the conflict-ridden DRC. The good news is that by enabling one of its consultants, Rev. Dr. Emmanuel, to co-facilitate workshops in Goma, Shalom-SCCRR is making significant strides towards the integration of the DRC in its peace programmes. This paper is a narrative piece about the series of workshops held in Goma (DRC) and that covered the period between 1st and 17th June 2023. Shalom’s intervention is urgently needed in the DRC as it continues to be one of the most conflict-violent prone environment on earth (despite well-meaning organizational interventions in the past).  The human cost of these years of conflict, escalating in the 1990s onwards is expressed in millions of deaths, displacements, and abuses. We believe Shalom-SCCRR can make a major conflict resolution and reconciliation impact.

People fleeing fighting between Congolese forces and M23 rebels near Kibumba in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo, May 24, 2022.  Source: Human Right Watch, https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/10/18/dr-congo-army-units-aided-abusive-armed-groups

The Goma series of workshops is an initiative that confronts and responds transformatively to the situation of conflict in North Kivu. For nearly three decades, the DRC has been grappling with an unprecedented humanitarian disaster whose causes are rooted in the political history of the Congo characterized by the struggle for power, citizenship, land, and numerous other forms of structural-institutional violence. Bad governance illustrated by corruption has become endemic in the institutions of the country. Moreover, the regional context is particularly unstable with the resurgence of the M23 rebellion. All this scenery generates wars and inter-ethnic conflicts that shake the populations and plunge them into a generalized socio-economic crisis. From this conflict situation, a large number of deplorable attitudes, feelings, and acts are born, such as stigmatization, demonization, vengeful actions across ethnic groups, mutual distrust, inflammatory and offensive speeches, killing, rape, and other physical and psychological violences that have led several people into exile while others live in IDPs camps. The resilience of conflict memory is deeply ingrained in the culture of the people living in conflict environments; an issue that Shalom-SCCRR gives high priority to in its preventive diplomacy and transformative interventions.

Side by side: Congolese people fleeing due to fighting between M23 and government forces in 2022
And Don Bosco Ngangi  camp in Goma town (DRC) that shelters more than 12,000 IDPs

Therefore, in its peacebuilding mission, the Anglican Church of Congo, in partnership with the Catholic Diocese of Goma, the Baptist Community in Central Africa, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of DRC, had the lofty idea of ​​organizing an Interfaith Project for Peace in North Kivu known in its French version as Projet Interconfessionnel pour la Paix. The project began in 2022 and was branded as PIP001: it covered the period from June 1 to 3, 2022, and was concerned with the training of religious leaders living in the city of Goma only. The PIP002 is therefore an extension of the Pilot Project PIP001, it broadens the spectrum of the latter by including religious, customary, and community leaders from the territories of Masisi, Rutshuru, Walikale, and Nyiragongo.

Illustrative pictures of Shalom-SCCRR: Rev. Dr. Tembo participating in a mediation workshop at Nauyapong’, West Pokot (Northern Kenya); PowerPoint page showing Shalom-SCCRR methodology; Ms. Esther Kibe SCCRR team leader giving guidelines to women gathered in a group discussion; and Rev. Oliver Noonan MA (PhD. Candidate), Shalom-SCCRR Executive Director, Ms. Paula Soumaya Domit (Harvard Kennedy School MPP Candidate), and Shalom-SCCRR’s Mrs. Judith Akedi MA, facilitating an inter-ethnic Conflict Transformation training workshop in Marti, Samburu County – a semi-arid and conflict-prone area where Shalom-SCCRR is implementing various peace and development  interventions.

It is worth noting that before and concurrently with the PIP programme, there are numerous peace initiatives led by the international, regional, national, and local communities, including peace conferences single-handedly undertaken by churches. The originality of the PIP lies in its integrative setup and the professionalism it is seeking for its conflict transformation and peacebuilding empowerment: churches decide to combine their efforts to train its religious leaders in their bid to transform conflict and consolidate peace in North Kivu. However, given the collaboration that must exist between leaders at all levels, the programme seeks the training of customary and community leaders as well. In short, the mentioned leaders (community, customary and religious) are the direct project beneficiaries who should help in the promotion of peace in their respective churches and entities. The indirect beneficiaries include the dependents of the above-mentioned leaders, the participants in cultural activities, the listeners of awareness programmes and the members of religious denominations, all estimated at 262,977. 

Official PIP002 banner indicating the number of participants, that is, eighty for each workshop: one for 80 leaders from Goma, the other for 80 leaders from Masisi, another for 80 leaders from Rutshuru, another for 80 from Walikale and the last one for 80 leaders from Nyiragongo territories (DRC)

In its vision to bring together and train eminent religious and community leaders in conflict transformation, the consortium of churches under the coordination of the Anglican Church of Congo sought the expertise of the Center for Intercultural Missions and Research (CIMR). The latter is quartered in Goma town. It has a network of trainers with extensive experience in global missions, biblical and Islamic studies, local and global politics, psychology, and intercultural dialogue.

The lacking piece in the CIMR machine is the expertise in peacebuilding efforts and, more specifically, conflict transformation. Hence to fill the gap, Rev. Dr. Emmanuel Tembo, a native of the DRC and fully trained in the Shalom-SCCRR methodology was invited by Rt. Rev. Martin Gordon, the Anglican bishop of Goma through the director of CIMR. The CIMR facilitated the training in order to find faith-based solutions and local mechanisms to resolve local conflicts by engaging local religious and community leaders in peacebuilding dialogue and encouraging them to place the interests of the community above individual ambitions. The guidance, professionalism, and highly qualified competency of the Shalom-SCCRR team can be a great asset to peace processes in the DRC going forward.

Above: Rt. Rev. Martin Gordon’s talk and prayer with key personnel at the beginning of the PIP002; Below: CIMR Facilitators and Anglican organizing committee with Dr. Tembo after a consultation meeting for the preparation of the PIP002 workshops  

In view of the above, a series of workshops on conflict transformation, peacebuilding and democratic culture in the territories of Nyiragongo, Walikale, Masisi, Rutshuru, and Goma town was organized from June 01 to 17, 2023 in the city of Goma in the province of North Kivu. The central motto of the training was: “self-transformation, pledge of the transformation of families, churches, communities, and entire society.” Its primary objective was to train 320 community, customary and religious leaders in the prevention, management, and transformation of ethnic conflicts, land disputes and in advocacy of human rights, especially child and women rights with a view to consolidating peace in North Kivu.

As for the content of the workshops, the agenda included the following topics:

  1. Devotion-Ministry of Reconciliation based on St. Francis of Assisi’s prayer for peace
  2. Shalom-SCCRR analytical approach and skills:
  • To understand the conflicts in North Kivu and the place of self-transformation for an effective response
  • To grasp the role of customary/traditional chiefs in interethnic conflicts and land-related disputes
  • In peacebuilding, reconciliation, basic rights and democratic culture of peace
  • Conflict management and transformation (theoretical and practical outline of transformation)
  • In prevention of interethnic conflicts and techniques of mediation

3. Baraza: God, Earth, and War

4. PIP002: How to plan, design and facilitate trainings that aim to transform the individual for peace – character of a facilitator

Rev. Drs. Emmanuel Tembo and Patrick Devine deliberating on the dynamics of a conflict transformation center in the eastern Democratic Republic Congo (DRC) going forward.

In terms of methodology, the PIP002 workshop borrowed heavily from Shalom-SCCRR analytical approach and skills. First of all, the paradigms of conflict were of great use and help. Participants were broadly instructed about the major causes of conflict from the strategist, peace research, and conflict research points of view; the phases and effects of a conflict. In this regard, concrete examples were drawn from participants’ communities and living areas. Put in a nutshell, participants were led through conflict analysis and peacebuilding techniques from the incipient phase of a conflict to its transformation. Secondly, as it is the custom at Shalom-SCCRR, the didactics of the training put the participants at the centre of the conversation. So it was in Goma: participatory and experiential approaches and cooperative learning took the lion’s share. Finally, Shalom wishes that the training takes place in people’s sitz-im-leben, I mean in their environment or where cases of violence were reported. With the PIP002 in Goma, facilitators and organizers agreed that the training takes place next to the IDPs’ camp; the reason being: trainees who are community, customary, and religious leaders should taste the humanitarian misery in which their fellow citizens are living in, hence see to it that they fulfill their pledges towards peace in North Kivu.

Other PIP002 Workshop Pictures

In sum, the training revealed a great need to train more community and religious leaders. To a large extent, the intended educational objectives set by PIP002 were achieved through the process of capacity building training and interaction with customary, community and religious, leaders from Goma and the territories of Masisi, Walikale, Rutshuru, and Nyiragongo. Participants went back home with appropriate skills on conflict transformation focused on self-transformation. Indeed, interactions during the training made participants aware of the breakdown of relationships in their respective communities; that time was ripe to rebuild them starting from one’s heart. All in all, the PIP002 workshop in Goma was a success, thanks to Shalom-SCCRR that enabled Rev. Dr. Emmanuel one of its consultants to co-facilitate the said workshop. We can affirm that Shalom-SCCRR is now present in the DRC through its globally renowned methodology that was largely used in the PIP002. The next step is to establish a conflict transformation center in the eastern DRC in liaison with Shalom-SCCRR that is staffed by highly qualified personnel committed to peacebuilding in theory and practice. The urgency for such a development cannot be overstated. Thank you Shalom-SCCRR for the expertise and professionalism you are providing to Africa. You have demonstrated that justice and peace and integrity of creation/environment are not concepts to be just speculated about!

[1] https://www.eac.int/eac-partner-states/drcongo#:~:text=The%20Democratic%20Republic%20of%20the%20Congo%20acceded%20to%20the%20EAC,member%20on%2011%20July%202022.

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