Congo: Call for international Solidarity

Situation in the North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo

NO TO WAR!

YES TO LIFE AND TO FOOD SOVEREIGNTY!

The Confédération Paysanne du Congo (Peasant Confederation of Congo), COPACO-PRP, member of La Via Campesina in Africa, launches an appeal for international solidarity, given the armed conflict and insecurity situation that has intensified in the last weeks in the Northern province of Kivu, on the border with Ruanda.

The victims of this armed conflict between regular Congolese troops and rebel groups are the innocent civil populations, forced to leave their houses and fields, forced to wander along the roads and to join the refugee camps, in better cases.

They are already a million of displaced people and three million dead in the region, victims of insecurity for more than fifteen years now.

In this war and impunity context, women are regularly violated, where violation is regarded as a battle weapon like any other one.

These populations are, in their majority, whole families, of peasant men and women that today are prevented from accessing their fields, their cattle, their crops, and cannot return to their homes. Besides, their working tools such as hoe and machete are confiscated, regarded as cold-steel.

We, peasant men and women of Congo, want cassava fields!

We do not want mine fields neither wars!

This war is clearly also a hazard to Food Sovereignty of these families and of the country as a whole. Forcing the peasant men and women to leave their fields, and therefore, preventing them from tilling them (the fields) in accordance with the agricultural calendar, the door thus being opened shamelessly for international food aid, which often is in the hands of the transnational companies of the agro-food sector, and all this in the allegedly called food security and international aid!

At the hour of worldly food crisis, we reaffirm that Africa in general, and Congo particularly, can feed themselves! This war contributes to the accelerated disappearance of peasant men and women, and of peasant agriculture, at the same time.

This is the reason why we, from Confédération Paysanne de Congo, launch an appeal for international solidarity, towards all Via Campesina members and all our friends, in Africa and in the whole world.

• Solidarity messages to peasant men and women of Eastern Congo, whom are affected by this infamous war, can be sent to copacoprp@yahoo.frvcafrica@gmail.com and/or to

• We ask that messages be also sent to DRC embassies in your countries, of Rwanda, and to United Nations Organization, UN, which handles the peacekeeping duty in Congo – so that measures are undertaken for protecting innocent civil populations, the majority of which are peasant men and women, so that unpunished violations against women are stopped. Measures must also be undertaken that will enable these displaced peasant families to return to their homes, and engage in their agricultural activities.

FOOD SOVEREIGNTY NOW! WITH THE UNITY AND STRUGGLE OF THE PEOPLES!

GLOBALIZE STRUGGLE! GLOBALIZE HOPE!

Contacts :

COPACO-PRP, Nathanael Buka, national spokesperson, Tel : +243 81 16 48 430, copacoprp@yahoo.fr
COPACO-PRP, Alphonsine Nguba, ICC member of La Via Campesina, Tel : +243 99 46 42 963, ngubaalpha@yahoo.fr
Renaldo Chingore João, UNAC, Mozambique, ICC member of La Via Campesina, renaldo.unac@gmail.com
Ibrahima Coulibaly, CNOP, Mali, ICC member of La Via Campesina, i_ibracoul@yahoo.fr
Fatimatou Hima, Plateforme Paysanne du Niger, ICC member of La Via Campesina, fatimatou3@caramail.com

Fatimatou Hima, Plateforme Paysanne du Niger, ICC member of La Via Campesina, fatimatou3@caramail.com