c. 1997 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ As political confusion and social anarchy threaten to spiral out of control in Zaire, officials from U.S. churches and advocacy groups are urging the Clinton administration to take an active role in peacefully removing Zairean President Mobutu Sese Seko from power.”The United States _ working with concerned African nations and others in the international community _ should immediately take steps to support a negotiated transition,”the groups said in a statement.

The 40 groups and individuals, including representatives of the U.S. Committee on Refugees, Bread for the World, TransAfrica, the United Church of Christ’s Africa Office, and the United Methodist Church’s General Board of Church and Society, said such a transition is the”key to creating a democratic political process and meeting humanitarian needs”in Zaire.”For the past years, Washington has failed to develop an effective strategy to achieve its stated goal of democratization,”the groups said.”Today, we need to go beyond the current ineffectual policy of words and principles to actively engage with African and other governments in finding a nonviolent solution that removes not only Mobutu but Mobutuist tyranny from Zaire.” Zaire, which has been the home of hundreds of thousands of Rwandan and Burundian refugees over the past three years, has been in turmoil since anti-Mobutu rebels in the eastern part of the country launched an uprising last October.

The rebels have gained control of nearly one-fourth of Zaire’s territory and the fighting has driven the refugees from camps and made aid deliveries difficult if not impossible. Most aid agencies have withdrawn their workers from affected area.

On Friday (April 4), officials from four major international humanitarian agencies _ the World Food Program, UNICEF, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the humanitarian commission of the European Union _ launched an unprecedented joint appeal for help for thousands of refugees trapped by the fighting in eastern Zaire.”We have witnessed the plight of the refugees ourselves,”the four said in a statement.”These people fled into the rain forest to escape the fighting and violence in the region.” The statement said that”many thousands”of refugees, as well as internally displaced Zaireans,”remain out of reach.” The groups appealed to both sides in the civil war to grant access to relief agencies and”to fully consider the urgent humanitarian needs of hundreds of thousands of refugees and displaced Zaireans in the war zone.” At the same time, World Vision International, the independent evangelical relief agency based in Monrovia, Calif., said it won permission to bring relief workers back into areas of eastern Zaire controlled by the rebels.

World Vision officials based in Nairobi, Kenya, said the group has received a letter of safe conduct and permission to fly charter aircraft into the 900-mile swath of Zaire under control of the rebels.

Using the safe conduct pass, David Toycen, president of World Vision Canada, will enter the area Tuesday (April 8) with an assessment team, the group said.

In Washington, the State Department said it had no immediate comment on the statement issued by the religious and advocacy groups.

But department officials noted the United States has appealed to both sides to allow humanitarian workers access to refugees and the displaced. State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said on Thursday the U.S. government has been in touch with the rebel alliance, urging it to permit implementation of a U.N. plan to repatriate many of the refugees.

On the fate of Mobutu, the United States’ position has been that his future is a matter for Zaireans to decide.

But the religious and advocacy groups said the United States has an obligation to push for change in Zaire because of its long support for the Mobutu government, which it labeled corrupt and tyrannical.”While the success of the rebellion in Zaire provides a long-awaited opportunity to end the bankrupt Mobutu dictatorship, there is great danger that further militarization will exacerbate divisions among anti-Mobutu forces and make democracy less likely,”the statement said.

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