Updates on the war and news from the Peace School, the potential opening of Goma airport for humanitarian aid, actions to take, and a fable from Congo 3|28|2025
The power of myths and proverbs often influences our daily lives, stories woven into the fabric of our culture or society so oft-repeated, we may not recognize how they shape how we think and act. With the wars in Congo past and present, the proverb that was selected as the title to the 2015 documentary When Elephants Fight is often in the back of my mind.
When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.
The Congo Peace School is operating. Action Kivu is able to send money to buy food, to pay the staff, and to begin to help meet the emergency needs this ongoing war has created. Soldiers on all sides have looted peoples' homes and small businesses, leaving them no money and no food. The roads are too dangerous to walk far for supplies or to find work. Families are going hungry, and you can help.
$120 will provide a family of 6 with corn flour, rice, beans, salt, sugar, a bucket, basin, cup and some basic medicine to feed and care for them for 3 weeks. Through the safety of the Congo Peace School campus, we may be able to serve up to 500 families each weekend. We are assessing and meeting other needs as they arise. DONATE HERE.
The Peace School has several security protocols in place, and will close for any day it is not safe to gather. As it is not safe for the students to linger at the campus after classes are over, Amani and I woke early (4am pacific) to be able to zoom with some of the students while they were on lunch break, giving them the platform to share their stories with you, so that we can amplify them. We'll be sharing those here, soon.
::UPDATES::
At the school, the community grieves as one of our staff lost her brother to the war. He was killed by M23 on March 17. The roads near the school remain heavily militarized most of the time.
The people are caught in the middle of the warring factions. M23 advises civilians not to support the Wazalendo (Swahili for "patriots") - armed militia who are without training in the international laws around war. The Wazalendo are telling civilians not to support M23.
M23 continues to harass and attack civilians in South and North kivu Kivu. A close contact had taken a taxi to the market for food, and on returning, the taxi passed by a slow moving M23 vehicle, and the rebels stopped the taxi, and beat the person so badly he had to go to the hospital. The doctors have said he will recover, bodily, but we know the trauma of living in this terror will take years of mental health work to heal. Another taxi driver was beaten and tortured almost to death for "bad parking" when dropping off a passenger in Bukavu.
This morning (28 March) an agreement was reached for a ceasefire at the Goma airport between the AFC-M23 forces and the SADC for the SAMIDRC troops removal, and a path to open the Goma airport (after reconstruction) seemingly under M23 control, to allow humanitarian aid shipments to reach the people of the Kivus. The Peace School sources some of its food from Goma. Read more here.
Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) visited the region recently and upon his return, spoke at the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa.
As we know the stories we tell matter and have real-world consequences, we want to be sure to correct a statement he made (you can watch his portion here.)This post on X summarizes why he was factually incorrect about Rwanda's historical control of DRC's land.
At a different forum, Amani was able to speak up after there were questions about the idea of annexation of eastern DRC by Rwanda. From Amani: "There can be no annexation, and no military solution. Violence only escalates with military force and does not protect the Tutsi minority in Congo [that Rwanda's President Kagame states needs his military protection], or human rights overall. The solution is already available to us in the Addis Ababa Framework [signed in 2013 when M23 was first occupying Goma].
What is the Addis Ababa Framework Agreement on Peace, Security and Cooperation in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Region? Congolese doctor and Nobel Peace Prize Winner Dr. Denis Mukwege reflects on it 10 years after its signing. Read here
A summation and path forward in A Way out of DRC's Proxy War, by Sasha Lezhnev and John Prendergast. Read here
Friend of Action Kivu and the Senior Policy Advisor at The Sentry, Sasha Lezhnev also shared some of Amani's civil society data when testifying on Capitol Hill to the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa:
"At present, there are reportedly over 450 illegally operating mining companies in South Kivu, mainly run by Chinese nationals, 50 who have been involved in smuggling up to eight tons of gold annually. According to Congolese civil society representative and Harvard Visiting Fellow Amani Matabaro, in these mining areas, 'the rate of severe malnutrition among children under five years old is high, many children are out of school, there is an unbearable degradation of water ecosystems, and the rainforest is being washed out. …The [mainly Chinese mining operations] have no permits, their production is not traced, they corrupt and engage armed forces in their activities, and they have no social responsibility commitments.'"
Read the whole of what Sasha shared here.
Congo rebel leader says sanctions or minerals deal with the US won’t stop fighting in the east - read AP story here.
On Monday, the conflict flared up again, with rebels reneging on a pledge to withdraw from the strategic town of Walikale in North Kivu province. Read the story here.
A delegation from the UN Group of Experts was supposed to meet the AFC-M23 leadership in Goma to discuss questions concerning the situation in areas controlled by the rebel group, but AFC-M23 canceled the talks.
Our partner in humanitarian work, PAEMA highlighted a recent article from Al-Jazeera includes helpful maps, numbers and a timeline
Picking up that book on Central African Folktales, I read a short fable that resonates with me, and the kind of community we are all building through education rooted in peace and nonviolence.
Why the Small-ant Was the Winner
(From the Lower Congo Basin)
One day a fierce Driver-ant and a Small-ant had a long discussion as to which of them wad the stronger.
The Driver-ant boasted of his size, the strength of his mandibles, and the fierceness of his bite.
"Yes, all that may be true," quietly answered the Small-ant, "and yet with all your size and strong jaws you cannot do what I can do."
"What is that?" sneeringly asked the Driver-ant.
"You cannot cut a piece of skin off the back of that man's hand, and drop it down here," replied the Small-ant.
"Can't I? All of you wait and see," said the Driver-ant.
Away he climbed up the man until he reached the back of his hand. At the first bite of the strong mandibles, the man started, and, looking down at his hand, saw the Driver-ant, picked it off, and dropped it dead at his feet right among the waiting crowd of ants.
The Small-ant then climbed to the place, and gently, softly, with great patience he worked round a piece of skin until it was loose, and he was able to drop it to the ground. The waiting throng of ants proclaimed him the winner, for he had done by his gentleness and patience what the other had failed to do by his strength and fierceness.
Patience feels ... out of place when we are crying out for a war to end, for the body count to end, for children to be able to walk to school without fear of rape or death.
That kind of patience and gentleness is not what I'm thinking about. But we do know that the seeds of peace planted now will take root and bloom in ways we cannot predict, long after we're gone from the earth.
The kind of patience we need is the aspect that takes determination, a ferocity of hope that we will not give in to hopelessness or helplessness. Thank you for continuing to ferociously work for peace, in even the most gentle ways: with your thoughts, your actions, your support, and the stories you tell.
