NEWS FEATURE: Under new regime, Congo pastor discovers the cost of discipleship

c. 1998 Religion News Service KINSHASA, Congo _ In a grassy field a few dozen yards from the banks of the Congo river, pastor Theodore Ngoy gazed out across hundreds of hopeful Congolese faces eight months ago and preached to the soul of a troubled nation. Worship not the power and authority of human government, […]

c. 1998 Religion News Service

KINSHASA, Congo _ In a grassy field a few dozen yards from the banks of the Congo river, pastor Theodore Ngoy gazed out across hundreds of hopeful Congolese faces eight months ago and preached to the soul of a troubled nation.

Worship not the power and authority of human government, he told his followers. Idolize only the word of God or Congo will again go astray down the path of Mobutu Sese Seko. It had become a common theme at pastor Ngoy’s independent riverside Church of Gombe, one provoking repeated secret police threats against church workers.


On December 6 secret police arrested Ngoy at a church seminar.

A military court deemed his words subversive threats to state security that bordered on insults to the president. For such crimes he spent nearly seven months in prison, most of it crammed in a filthy 15-foot square cell with 29 other men at Kinshasa’s Makala prison.

The current hostilities in Congo, President Laurent Kabila would have the world believe, resulted from an abrupt, unprovoked foreign invasion Aug. 2.

Now a free man, Ngoy argues any peace talks are doomed to fail unless they address the quieter, darker war Kabila has been waging since seizing power some 16 months ago.”Kabila has met all the conditions to be overthrown. He destroyed the confidence people had in him and disappointed the people who helped him win the war,”Ngoy said at a busy hotel cafe, confidently ignoring the secret police who conspicuously edged their chairs ever-closer to his table.

Security services have proliferated under Kabila, including the unit of the army known as Military Detection of Anti-Motherland.

Journalists, human rights workers, and opposition politicians have been routinely arrested for petty offenses.

Arthur Ngoma, head of the Forces of the Future party and now a lead negotiator for the rebels, was arrested for holding a meeting in a Kinshasa hotel. He, his followers and journalists were stripped and beaten by police. The editor of three local newspapers was arrested for supposedly being an agent of the United Nations commission of inquiry into human rights abuses.

Asked at a January press conference whether his soon to be reshuffled cabinet would be open to the opposition, Kabila said he”did not know whether there was an opposition to which we have to open ourselves.” What incensed Ngoy most was what he described as a campaign of idolatry.”As they did during Mobutu’s reign, they started singing praises of Kabila on television. We are going toward what was happening in Mobutu’s reign. It is the war that stopped it. If the war had not occurred, the power would have reached that state,”he said.

He also noted that Kabila has adopted the title Mzee, the wise man in Swahili, and erected oversized images of himself at major intersections and along boulevards in Kinshasa.


In May, the government held a contest to see who could write the best song about Congo. Not surprisingly the entries fawned over Kabila.

The winner of the $10,000 first prize was the brother of the then minister of information and culture, Raphael Ghenda. Every day his song plays on state radio, set to a popular Congolese dance beat:”The Almighty Lord has listened to our prayers. He has sent a redeemer. His name is Laurent Kabila. With his AFDL (political party) mates, they have rescued Congo. Thanks to them the power is in the people’s hands.””Mobutu created a system progressively and the system in the long run began violating human rights,”Ngoy said.”From the onset we could not realize he was a dictator. The system was disguised. But Kabila has done many mischievous things in a short period. He confiscated democracy, arrested political leaders, and arrested people with free opinions. He has destroyed public confidence in him.”.

Well-known and respected in Kinshasa, Ngoy has long concerned himself with political affairs, arguing that modern democracies take separation of church and state too far and leading people to conclude _ wrongly in his view _ that religion should not concern itself with the political world.

Contending with inequitous rule by Romans, Egyptians and other rulers is a major biblical theme he finds rich in parallels for Congo.”You cannot talk of the Bible without talking about politics,”he said.”God effectively said to Moses if you want to keep this country for a long time you must respect human rights.” Ngoy’s beliefs led him to write public letters to Mobutu urging him to step down and seek forgiveness. When Kabila arrived, Ngoy continued preaching and writing letters published in the local press.”Even in my church (Kabila’s police) were coming and threatening people working there. They said if I continue to speak about such things (my staff) will be arrested.” Ngoy was first arrested Dec. 6 but released a few days later when Secretary of State Madeleine Albright visited Kinshasa. After she left, Ngoy was re-arrested on Dec. 10. He was released July 2 after Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and some 2,000 international pastors lobbied for his release.

Today Ngoy is battling to regain his job at the central bank, from which he was suspended when he was arrested. He said he is fighting for the job as a matter of principle but hopes if he wins to be able to resign and spend all his time preaching and establishing an organization to bring food, clothes and free legal help to prisoners.”They told me when I was released that I should keep silent. `When you speak you are dangerous,’ they said. I cannot stop talking. I am a trustworthy pastor and I should tell the truth. If I keep silent I am no longer a pastor.” Ngoy believes that the Congolese people have rallied around Kabila despite his failures.”There has never been a Congolese president who has been supported the way Kabila is now,”he said.”Not even Patrice Lumumba. The people of Congo do regard Kabila as a nationalist. That is why they forgive him everything including his mistakes.”But when the war will finish, the problems relating to human rights, relating to democracy, to the constitutional and judicial framework will be questioned again. If he has the same behavior as before, the same people will rebel against him, I assure you,”he said.

DEA END HERBERT

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