Pygmies protest for equality
2005-04-21 21:31
Kinshasa - About 2 500 pygmies emerged from their forest homes in northeast Democratic Republic of Congo on Thursday to demand equal rights with other citizens in the vast central African nation, the UN radio station in the country said.
The pygmies, many of whom reportedly made their first trips outside their villages in the trek to the town of Isiro for the demonstration, decried killings and abuses committed against them by other ethnic groups, it said.
"We also exist, the pygmies"; "Justice, equality and rights for the pygmies in the DRC" and "Pygmy killers must be brought to justice like any other guilty person," read signs carried by demonstrators, Okapi radio reported.
About 5 000 Isiro residents joined the pygmies in the peaceful protest that was held at the town's Nelson Mandela stadium and is believed to be the first demonstration of its kind in the DRC, it reported.
Walked 100km
Local officials and MPs were in attendance as the pygmies arrived at the stadium after having walked at least 100km from their tropical forest homes in the DRC's Mambasa, Ndwuye, Mugbere and Wamba regions.
The "march for peace" was organised by a Catholic priest in a bid to help the pygmies, considered the first inhabitants of what is now known as the DRC, press "for their right to be recognised like other Congolese", the radio said.
The pygmies live essentially as subsistence hunter-gatherers in the forests in the DRC's equatorial zones but have been targeted by militia groups in the past.
In a 2003 report, the UN security council and the UN mission in the DRC accused the rebel Congo Liberation Movement (MLC) and allied Congolese Rally for National Democracy (RDC-N) of committing atrocities against the pygmies in Mambasa the year before.
The MLC and RDC-N, which are now political parties, controlled the northeastern and northwestern regions of the country during the DRC's last bout of war between 1998 and 2003.