PRESS CONFERENCE BY INDIGENOUS PEOPLE OF DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

International press needed to inform the people about the plight of the indigenous people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, correspondents were told at a Headquarters press conference sponsored by the Secretariat for the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues this afternoon.

Speaking to the press were Njuma Ekundanayo, member of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, specializing, in particular, in the issues of pygmy peoples of the Democratic Republic of Congo; and Sinafasi Makelo of the Bambuti Pygmies and Adolphine Muley of the Batwa Pygmy Community of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Although they were the indigenous inhabitants of a vast and rich country, the pygmies in the Democratic Republic of Congo today were without land, recognition, or rights, the speakers said.  Among the most serious issues, included poverty, displacement, marginalization, violence, the spread of AIDS, genocide and even cannibalism.  Indigenous women were often subjected to sexual violence and rape.  Indigenous people of the Congo were disappearing, both culturally and physically.

Referring to his statement yesterday in the Forum, Mr. Makelo said that never before had his people known atrocities of the scale committed at present.  Human beings were hunted and eaten by members of armed groups as though they were game animals, as had recently happened to the Mambasa pygmies in the Ituri District.  Other participants of the press conference confirmed that there were witness accounts of such incidents.  Supposedly, cannibalism was committed by members of armed groups in the hope to acquire magic powers through consumption of their flesh.  The selective character of such cannibalism, which was carried out only on the Bambuti minority group, was tantamount to genocide, he concluded.

The representatives of the indigenous people of the Democratic Republic of Congo had come to the United Nations to ask for help before all hope was lost, correspondents were told.  Today, representatives of the Forum would be meeting with the President of the Security Council to alert him to the problems faced by the indigenous people of the Democratic Republic of Congo as a result of war and lawlessness in the country.

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