11/7/2003 News media contact: Tim Tanton · (615) 742-5470 · Nashville, Tenn.
Photographs are available.
By United Methodist News Service
Joseph
Kabila (left), president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, speaks
with a delegation from the United Methodist Council of Bishops during a
Nov. 6 meeting in Washington. At right is Bishop Felton May. A UMNS
photo by Mike DuBose. Photo number 03-435, Accompanies UMNS #540,
11/7/03
No Long Caption Available for this Story
United
Methodist Bishops Fama Onema (left) and Felton May (right) pray with
Joseph Kabila, president of the Democratic Republic of Congo. A
delegation from the United Methodist Council of Bishops met with Kabila,
32, during the council's Nov. 2-7 gathering in Washington. A UMNS photo
by Mike DuBose. Photo number 03-434, Accompanies UMNS #540, 11/7/03
No Long Caption Available for this Story
WASHINGTON (UMNS) - The 32-year-old president of
the Democratic Republic of the Congo is asking United Methodist bishops
to help his impoverished and war-torn nation as he moves to bring peace
and, eventually, free elections to his people.
Thirteen bishops,
including three from the Congo, met with President Joseph Kabila during
the Council of Bishops' six-day semiannual meeting in the Washington
Area. Kabila was in the U.S. capital to meet with President George W.
Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell and executives from international
development organizations.
Between prayers offered by the
bishops, Kabila offered a frank assessment of conditions in the African
country, where more than 1 million United Methodists live. He stated his
commitment to change in the nation as it emerges from a six-year war in
which millions of Congolese died.
"The will of people is the
will of God. It is the will of the people to live in peace with their
neighbors. Hearing this, who was I to go against the will of God?" said
Kabila, who became president in 2001 after the assassination of his
father, President Laurent Kabila.
The elder Kabila had ruled
since overthrowing dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997. War erupted soon
afterward, with surrounding countries taking sides in the brutal
fighting. Nearly 11,000 U.N. peacekeepers are working to maintain a
fragile peace.
Speaking softly in English from a single page of
notes, Kabila said the Congo needs to be a priority for the worldwide
United Methodist Church.
"The Methodist Church is found on each
and every corner. It is very, very active," Kabila told the bishops. He
outlined his top priorities: economic development, the fight against a
fearsome epidemic of HIV/AIDS, and the movement to elections and a
democratic government.
"Congo should become a priority area. It should be a priority in your prayers (and) in your social concern," Kabila said.
He
asked the church to help him improve health care throughout the
country. "We hope to make sure that a pregnant woman won't have to walk
100 kilometers to a medical center. Bring the medical center to her."
Kabila
said he seeks ensure "that no single Congolese will go to bed without
eating. No father of children will be unable to send his children to
school… AIDS is like a war, but we cannot sign a cease-fire. We cannot
afford to lose this particular battle."
Bishop Fama Onema of the
Central Congo Area opened the meeting and said Kabila is committed to
"peace, reconciliation and unity in our country." Congolese bishops
Nkulu Ntambo of the North Katanga Area and Kainda Katembo of the
Southern Congo Area, sat a few feet away.
Kabila told bishops he
is committed to a peace process that will lead to elections, but
cautioned that he is walking a difficult road. "It's one thing to talk
of peace. It's another to make peace last…With 50 million people with
differences, it is important that they sit around the table and talk
with each other. This is a process because six years of war cannot be
healed in four months."
"When I think of peace in the Congo, I
think of the verse in the Bible, 'Blessed are the peacemakers, for they
shall inherit the kingdom of God.' This was the driving force for the
peace process in the Congo," Kabila said.
Bishop Felton Edwin
May, bishop of the Washington Area and host of the council's meeting,
responded to the president's remarks, saying Kabila offered a "careful,
clear message, stated with dignity and wisdom. … The people of Congo
have put their trust in God, their faith, in you."
The meeting
concluded with a prayer by Bishop Sharon Brown Christopher of the
Illinois Area, immediate past president of the council. "We know the
peacemakers are blessed," she said, and she thanked God for Kabila's
"vision of stability, reconciliation, development and health."
The
United Methodist Committee on Relief is responding to needs in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo through UMCOR Advance No. 982353,
"Global Peacebuilding and Reconciliation." Contributions can be dropped
in church offering plates or sent to the agency at 475 Riverside Drive,
Room 330, New York, NY 10115. Credit-card donors can call (800)
554-8583.
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