On Foreign Scene
Pope Francis has asked foreign powers to stop plundering Africa’s natural resources for the poison of their own greed.
He said this in the Democratic Republic of Congo as part of a trip to two African nations.
The 86-year-old Francis is the first pontiff to visit DR Congo since Pope John Paul II did so in 1985, when the country was still known as Zaire.
He repeatedly said, “Hands off the Democratic Republic of the Congo! Hands off Africa!” on Tuesday to applause in his opening speech to Congolese government authorities and the diplomatic corps in the garden of Kinshasa’s national palace.
Calling Congo’s vast mineral and natural wealth a diamond of creation, Pope Francis demanded that foreign interests stop carving up the country for their own interests and acknowledge their role in the economic enslavement of the Congolese people.
He asked them to stop choking Africa as it is not a mine to be stripped or a terrain to be plundered.
