Democratic Republic of Congo's President Joseph Kabila has refused to relinquish power for more than a year, and the Catholic Church has emerged as the leader in the fight against him.
Since December, when Kabila again refused to step down, the church and a spiritual group called the Lay Coordination Committee have organized a handful of protests, all of which have ended violently.
Most recently, anti-government protests in the capital city of Kinshasa on Sunday left four people dead and two more injured, according to the Associated Press.
Kabila's refusal to step down has also aggravated violence between government forces and multiple armed groups in other areas of the country. This includes the Kasai and Kivu regions, where mass atrocities have been carried out by both sides, killing and displacing thousands in the last few years.
Here's what's going on:
SEE ALSO: Congo Army gruesomely destroys base of Islamist rebel group blamed for killing 15 UN peacekeepers
DON'T MISS: These are the 25 most powerful militaries in the world — and there's a clear winner
President Joseph Kabila took power of the DRC in 2001 after his father's assassination.
Kabila helped unify the country after the two Congo wars of 1996-97 and 1998-2003, bringing back international business and raising GDP.
But at the same time, his government has been accused of gross incompetence, corruption and human rights abuses.
Source: AFP
Kabila was supposed to step down after his two-term mandate expired on December 19, 2016, but he stayed on after invoking a controversial law requiring a successor to be elected. This sparked a wave of protests.
In January 2017, the Catholic Church brokered a deal between Kabila's People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy and opposition parties that elections would be held in December 2017 and that Kabila would step down.
In December 2017, Kabila again refused to step down, saying that an election would have to be held at the end of 2018 because the government didn't have enough money.
Election officials have even said that, because of continued financial and logistical problems, the election might be even held later than that.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
source http://www.businessinsider.com/dr-congo-dictator-protests-catholic-church-2018-2
No comments:
Post a Comment