Ward 2 Councillor Claude Berthiaume will take a break from solving the problems of Greater Sudbury this summer.
He’s been asked to observe the first election in 40 years in the Democratic Republic of Congo as a board member with the Roman Catholic human rights organization Development and Peace. He’ll be in the country from July 21 to Aug. 6.
He spoke recently with Northern Life’s Heidi
Ulrichsen.
NL: How did Development and Peace get involved with this election?
CB: They were approached by the Canadian International
Development Agency (CIDA) to help the people with the election.
That has been one of the goals of our team for the last few years -
the democratization of countries.
NL: Tell me about the political situation there?
CB: The Congo only became independent in 1960. It was a colony of
Belgium up until then. They had elections back then, but then it
turned into a dictatorship. Joseph Mobutu was president from 1965
to 1997.
There was a new president, Laurent-Desire Kabila, for a few years,
but he was assassinated (in 2001). Then his son (Joseph Kabila)
took over.
In 2002, they came up with an agreement. They have a transitional
government right now. Kabila remains the president, and they have
four vice-presidents, and each represent a faction in the different
areas.
There was a war going on in the Congo from 1998-2004. There were
invading armies from border countries. There was something like 3.8
million people who died.
NL: What will your role be?
CB: My role will be to observe the election and be more of a
witness. I’m not supposed to interfere or anything like
that. It’s more to bring credibility to the election.
We’ll be observing on July 30-31. That’s when
the election will be.
NL: Are you excited?
CB: I am pretty excited. It will be my first time in Africa. I went
to Mexico City back in 1990, but that was more to learn about
issues for the global south. I’m looking forward to the
experience, for sure.
NL: Will this experience change how you do your job as city councillor?
CB: I think that seeing how people will cherish getting involved in
the election will inspire me to tell people here how important it
is to vote. I think about 42 percent of the population voted in our
last municipal election.
NL: Are you grateful for the democratic system we have in Canada?
CB: We have municipal elections here every three years. Soon it
will be every four. But it has been quite some time there since
they’ve had elections in the Congo. It shows how
important democracy is.
The former leader, who was there for 32 years, would take a lot of
the money and invest it elsewhere. From what I heard, he had a
condo in Toronto and Paris and everywhere. He and his family had
money, but nobody else did.
