The World Continues to Look Away. Don’t.
Some stories, as horrific as they are, need to be read by everyone. This is one of them.
Ombeni is late. School starts in 20 minutes and she still has to get her son Daniel’s books sorted, make his lunch and do a few odd jobs around the house. Her home is a two-room mud shack, in a honeycombed complex of corrugated iron and twisted branches dug into the hills surrounding Bukavu, in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
It’s a half hour’s walk from her front door to Daniel’s school, where she fixes his collar and kisses him goodbye. He gives a quick look around to make sure none of his classmates is looking, and returns her affection. Ombeni continues her journey another kilometre down the road, to her own classroom. This is her first year back at school, and her headmaster says she is a model pupil: “If only everyone was like her.”
By rights, Ombeni should be nearing the end of her university life, perhaps fending off marriage requests or applying for teaching posts in the city. But her schooling, and her life’s journey, were brutally interrupted almost five years earlier.
Back then she was a typical 15-year-old with dreams of university and a better life. Her home was a village in the countryside, where, when she wasn’t studying, she helped in the fields. It was while out working one evening that rebel forces captured her carefree innocence. For months she became their slave, both sexual and physical, as they lived in various wooded compounds along the Rwandan border. Heavily pregnant, and near death from lack of food, the rebels returned her to her village so her parents could watch her die.
But she didn’t, and now, five years on, she is picking up the pieces of a fragmented life.
It hasn’t been easy. Locals are wary of her son, thinking he will grow up and assume the same characteristics as his father. Ombeni says she can feel suspicious eyes on her every time they step outside, and unless she can get Daniel away from the village, she fears for his safety.
Daniel is oblivious, as any four-year-old should be. He likes school and gets on well with everyone in the playground. Next year his mother will start training to be a teacher. Two years after that, she hopes to have enough money to leave the village and get a house somewhere safe. A fresh start. Despite everything, she considers herself fortunate. For an increasing population of silent victims though, life in DRC has become a hellish pattern of sexual and physical torment. Along the eastern border region, a daily horror show is playing itself out, bolstered by the ambivalence of the world and the political vacuum created by decades of regional conflict.
The perpetrators include the Interahamwe, the Hutu fighters who fled neighbouring Rwanda in 1994 after committing genocide there; the Congolese army; a random assortment of armed civilians; even United Nations peacekeepers, and increasingly, local civilians.
Christine Schuler Deschryver, who works for a German aid organisation and has been a staunch and stubborn advocate for victims, says the perpetrators are difficult to identify. “All of them are raping women,” she says, “It is a country sport. Any person in uniform is an enemy to women.”
The problems have their roots in the Rwandan genocide in 1994, when thousands of victims and perpetrators fled across the border. Upwards of 10,000 Rwandan rebel forces remained, living in forested areas and terrorising local populations at their will. Rwanda doesn’t want them back, and even if they did, many refuse to return. The Congolese Army, it seems, has neither the collective heart nor the political will to forcibly remove them, and with many soldiers not receiving pay for months on end, they too are guilty of looting and pillaging. So the forces remain, intent on the sexual and social destruction of the local population.
So far they are succeeding on a spectacular scale. For those who are apprehended, there is little impunity, thanks to antiquated gender laws. The attacks grow more numerous and sadistic by the day and the normalisation of sexual violence continues largely unabated.
“Darfur is nothing compared to what’s going on in the Congo,” says Schuler Deschryver, who despite constant death threats, continues to raise the plight of Congolese women. “My father was the founder of the National Park in Rwanda, which is home to rare silver back gorillas. During the war here, just one silver back was killed. And when it happened, within 48 hours millions in funding was sent to ensure the rest of the gorilla population was protected. Why isn’t the same done with our women? I’ll tell you why, because in the eyes of the international community animals have more value than humans in this part of the world.”
Schuler Deschryver’s anger is also felt a few kilometres away, on the outskirts of Bukavu, where Dr Denis Mukwege, an obstetrician for more than 20 years, tries to deal with the aftermath of sexual violence. He runs Panzi Hospital, set up in 1999 in response to the emergency crisis after the so-called African war; it houses more than 350 patients. Each day, 10 new cases are admitted, some as young as nine, so badly damaged that reconstructive surgery is often required. The victims sit on benches, lining urine-soaked corridors, alone and frightened. On eye contact, there is nothing. No expression, no acknowledgement, no smiles - just a fleeting confirmation that behind their eyes, a pained suffering lies deep.
Mukwege can’t say for certain if the attacks are on the increase. In general, the hospital estimates it sees just 10 per cent of all sexual violence victims, but certain patterns are developing. Attackers are now identifiable by their manner of attack: one group, after raping the woman or girl, inserts the barrel of a gun into her vagina and shoots, thus destroying her vagina, bladder, rectum and causing massive blood loss. Some force males at gunpoint to rape mothers or sisters, often in front of the whole community. A large percentage of the attackers are HIV-positive and knowingly try to infect their victims.
These aren’t just random acts of grotesque inhumanity; it is the systematic sexual and social destruction of whole populations in eastern Congo. And little, it seems, is being done to stop it.
“I have seen men literally lost,” Mukwege says. “Emotionally ruined and unable to go on after witnessing the destruction of their wives and the resulting destruction of their families. They are permanently haunted by thoughts going through their head - ‘I raped my wife and family and didn’t stop it.’ Some men flee and abandon their families. In cases where the perpetrators don’t kill their victims outright, they kill them slowly and painfully, not just physically, but psychologically and emotionally. It is the destruction of society.”
British and American journalists have passed through Panzi, yet Mukwege says nothing has changed. The hospital still turns away patients and those responsible for the violence are seldom brought to justice. “I have spoken to everyone from the international media who have visited, but still the rapes continue. I have to keep hope otherwise I’d take off my shirt and stop my work.
“I know the situation can be resolved if people really get involved and international political will is behind it. We cannot ignore what’s happening here and portray it as barbaric African culture, as it is sometimes portrayed.”
The sense of exasperation is palpable, and as Mukwege is called away, victims who have queued outside hobble into the room to tell their stories.
Chibalonza Nsinire, 16, was asleep when the Interahamwe came. After tying her hands, they led her to a forest and over three days, took turns raping her and other women. After being raped, the women were forced to prepare meals for the forces, using food pillaged from their own houses.
Mugoli Muhamiri was expecting wedding guests when she answered a knock at her door six months ago. Instead of relatives, a group of men poured in and began a rampage. She was tied up and the men took turns raping her. From the corner of her eye, she saw her husband’s throat being slit, and two of her children being mutilated. They were two years old. She says she counted seven men raping her, before she lost consciousness. Now she clings to her only surviving child, Stephen, who is unaware of the HIV that infects his mother’s body.
“I have been given great medical support here, but I know one day soon I have to die. I cannot keep the medicine for the HIV in my stomach because I have no food. I feel bad for my child who remains, because he will have no mother and no father. That brings great sorrow to my heart.”
Heavily pregnant 15-year-old Furaha Tajiri is from the Ninja province. The forces came for her at night, tied her hands and started beating her and her parents repeatedly. “I then saw them take my parents and kill them,” she says.
“After that they took me with them to the forest. They started raping me there - I counted 17 who attacked me. I stayed in the forest for six months and each day I was raped by two men.”
Furaha gave birth to a boy the day after telling her tale. She was distraught, and needed food. Without a husband or family, she was only too acutely aware that much hardship lies ahead.
Throughout the eastern Congo, the stories were of the same horrific magnitude. There is little hope and little in the way of happy endings. Words such as rehabilitation and justice are no longer part of the daily vocabulary.
One group trying to help is the Irish aid organisation Trocaire, which believes UN troops should patrol the areas particularly prone to attack and protect vulnerable communities, notably women and girls.
The organisation also believes the DRC Government has a responsibility to seek a solution to the conflict in the east, and to do so while respecting human rights.
For many working on the ground the destruction is total and the task often overwhelming. Efforts to deal with the problem are only grazing the surface, in a country rich in resources but poor on relief. Fewer than 50 non-government organisations ply their trade in eastern Congo, in contrast to Rwanda, which is something of an NGO haven.
In the genocide museum in Kigali, the former UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, is quoted as feeling remorseful towards the atrocities committed in 1994, when 1 million Rwandans died on the UN’s watch. The world could have and should have done more, he infers. Yet 17,000 UN troops are stationed in DRC, and within a stone’s throw of their bases the most vulnerable in that society are being routinely destroyed.
Two months ago, the UN humanitarian chief, John Holmes, visited Panzi, was horrified when he heard the stories and saw the conditions. He also met Christine Schuler Deschryver. Normally an articulate and measured advocate, her diplomatic savvy deserted her. “I told him what is happening here is a holocaust. I was very aggressive. I said, ‘You are in the Congo, so what are you doing? You came to the hospital and like everyone you cry. Like everyone you leave. And like everyone, we never hear from you again.’ ”
Copyright © 2007. The Sydney Morning Herald.
Tell Matt Damon to ‘look West’ (which, if looking at the Congo, will be ‘looking in the mirror’)…
After society is destroyed the corporations have an easier time sucking up resources, so its all good. Welcome to the new global economics.
Don`t expect the religious right fundamentalists in America to help or worry about this. They are too busy getting ready for their own RAPTURE to be concerned with a HELL on earth that is here now.
Don’t look away and don’t take what you read for granted. The abuse of woman is not just a bi-product of displaced Hutu militias in Congo- the rape and pillage is perpetrated by all sides.A more meaningful question would be to examine the role of western backers to the various factions and seeing who benefits by the on going violence and destruction. What part does YOUR government play? This is the question that is regularly buried by the media.
For a different perspective see Allthingspass.com
Truly horrific. These renegade militias should be exterminated as they have lost all humanity and become the equivalent of rabid animals.
Uh, Jaded Prole, are you referring to redneck armed-militias in the US protected by the Constitution, or just the militias in Africa?
When our depression hits, the DRC will look really good to us. What’s going to happen to us, will be Hell on Earth. One of the major reasons we are going to suffer that fate, is because we didn’t help many people in other parts of the world with much of anything except war.
The Congolese humans are behaving like functional humans, not rabid animals(human or otherwise).
No other species does what humanity does. Even chimps, which are the closest in behavior, dont do these sorts of things.
As for the comment on gorillas by the aid worker. Shame on her. There are far less gorillas than Congolese people! Gorillas get killed to make ornaments for Asia. The gorillas have their own problems, which are entirely not of their own making. It would be an immense tragedy if a species as peaceful as a gorilla gets wiped out.They arent capable of breeding a Stalin, Hitler or Idi Amin.
The West cynically cares about gorillas and other species but they still cant prevent their slaughter.
The Congolese men are very f*cked up.
For a fraction of the costs and lives that we have lost in Iraq, we could have mitigated much of the horrific problems discussed here. These misplaced efforts can be attributed largely to the uninformed and apathetic voters had not helped plant this zealot administration in office.
Meanwhile we’re spending billions on Iraq when a fraction of our effort could stop this madness. I can see why some people turn away. This is the kind of article that’s so shocking and reveals things so grotesquely inhumane that you don’t really want to remember reading it. But if you forget the horror continues.
Funny how Robert Settgast and I had about the same thought at the same time.
Kelmer, your post is pretty screwed up, that’s all I can say, misanthropic to say the least. The Congo problems are being cause by groups of monsterous people, not by innate human characteristics. You’re basically hedging toward condeming the whole populace, hence we can wash our hands of it, right?
This should be priority #1 for women’s organizations all over the world, shouldn’t it? Maybe NOW et al don’t care because this is happening to poor, foreign Negroes who can’t speak English.
I’m sure Congolese women have cultural and familial reasons for not forming militia of their own, but if they could, they would have every reason to hunt down and eradicate these male vermin.
Kelmer,
I’m afraid quite a few different species engage in warlike activities. Our common ancestors in fact engaged in greusome attrocites such as cannabialism, mass graves, bone scraping, skull collecting (trophies), et al.
the cases of intra species ‘murder’ ‘rape’ and infanticide in the wild is reportedly eight times higher than any urban city inhabited by humans.
Listen to professor David Livingstone Smith
http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2007/10/26/david-livingstone-smith/
this in no way excuses the behavior though– to attribute any action’s goodness or acceptableness to it being natural or somehow ‘human nature’ is to commit the naturalistic fallacy and what Hume dubbed the ‘is-ought’ problem. just because atrocities and the state of war is how things are (is) that in no way implies that is how they ought to be.
it is those of us who cherish freedom, justice, reason and humanity whose job it is to prevent said abuses from taking place
The level of misogyny is overwhelming. These societies, themselves products of predation, now see in disempowered men the use of a gun to signify a more violent phallic extension. This hell and its victims reverberates across the earth in every scream uttered, in every injustice not answered. As Martin Luther King said, we share a single garment of destiny. Or as Jesus articulated, “whatsoever is done to the least of you is done unto me.” So long as societies worship force, invest in weapons, it is largely the WOMEN who suffer. This is a disgusting, blatant example of that grotesque fact.
There is an important sentence in this article which is being overlooked : the one which states that “a large percentage of the attackers are HIV positive and knowingly try to infect their victims.” A long time back, in the early 90’s, I read about a prescient doctor who worked with HIV positive sex offenders (usually serial rapists). He saw significant behavioral patterns in these men, which he attributed to the fact that the HIV virus had ‘hijacked’ their brains and was using their bodies to spread itself. Wish I could find more information on this phenomena. Wonder why it is being suppressed ? (There is a corollary in the gay community, where uninfected men actively seek out HIV-positive men who are called ‘givers’). I’m afraid we have very little understanding of what this potent, mutable virus really is, or how it is affecting us. But we can certainly look at the results as per this article and realize that we had better address its behavioural manifestations.
So even the so-called ‘good guy’ UN soldiers are participating in these crimes against humanity.. It’s unfortunate (nay, unforgivable) that nothing much is being done to help these women and the society of the Congo. Hasn’t the African continent suffered enough collectively speaking? Will it never end? 500 years and counting is a very long time..
Kernel,
You should be more sympathetic to the right wing fundamentalists. They are so focused on getting their RAPTURE that they have failed to notice they only got a RUPTURE. Last I checked, a rupture is an ugly piece of torn flesh just inches away from your dick.
SIOUXROSE—-how sadly true, and more sadly, not really new in its grotesque proportions. What we all need to get beyond is the idea that somehow, these OTHERS are not like US. Not because all beings everywhere are as flagrantly and personally manifesting their hatred toward LIFE, but because we are all ONE.Is death by machete any more hideous than death by napalm or cluster bombs? Or any other of the myriad of ways our species has embraced to destroy the very fabric of LIFE? Can those of us who allow this to happen withtheir silent complicity, feel more virtuous than the Congolese men? Sanitizing slaughter by creating distance is less honest—-there is more hope for ultimate redemption/remorse, from perpetrators who actually see their victim.
The common practice of raping women in war is akin to the repudiation/violation of Mother Earth. How much longer will this continue before we all wake up to the realization that we are violating and destroying ourselves in the process ?
If we still had Bill Clinton in office, we’d have exactly the same policy. Remember his policy toward the Rwanda genocide? “Yawnnnnn…….”
SIOUXROSE —- You’ve really gotten hold of the issue here, when you say: “misogyny is overwhelming…we share a single garment of destiny…done to the least of you is done unto me”.
What can we think to BE empowered in proportion to this sadly degraded and inhumanized perpetration?
This is a tough post to respond to, so please be open, as I really do feel for you, STAR, and all womankind who obviously suffer significantly in this male dominated world. But then you aren’t alone in this.
I recall that a famous Buddhists from N. Viet Nam, who was powerful during those distributing times for his compassion - went even further after the LA riots following Roddney King’s awful beating and police being let go (mostly, I believe).
What the Buddhists said was that most could feel compassion for Rodney, with his fillings getting knocked loose, and the very obvious video captured pain and his reaction to continuing blows of several cops over some dozen or so minutes (Lake View Terrace, CA - where people know to pull over when those red lights come on - real quickly now).
But the challenging level of compassion is (turning the other cheek, even more so), is that understanding of what sort of sick twisted societal values could/did create the cops’ mindset, that allowed them each to do what they did, and believe that it was the right thing? Sorry to say, but that’s US - we’ve met the enemy (before).
Thus to me, the worse ills of ALL of society thereby do (in some way) sit upon each of our own shoulders, regardless of our ability to comprehend or carry that weight - if we desire to be truly and unconditionally compassionate.
I’m sorry to be blatantly and overwhelming misanthropic (both misogynistic and philogynistic), but alas this is occurring at the very depths of our male dominated society and psyche, and as long as we turn aside from the horror of HISstory, we will continue to see it again and again. And it’s not just from the drunken, ill-tempered, club wielding, lower tiers of males, but is co-opted also into how woman raise their children to be good soldiers for the realm, and all men become conditioned (at some level).
Perhaps your idea of ALL of us blessing each other, especially when times are going well — can gradually allow and give space for us to listen better to (and eventually heal) that “sick voice inside” — that wants to beat others so cruelly (and worse, with torture and rape, and molestation of our world’s children).
“Oh, the Humanity !” (with tears in my eyes)
as the newscaster reports the Hindenburg’s explosive and tragic end.
Namaste
NAMASTE^(100) = one google of them (1,000 …one hundred zeros…,000)
Does anyone really understand who is financing these atrocities? Who is arming these criminals?
Where are the Woodward and Bernstein’s of the world to tell us exactly who is behind these savages? “Somebody” is backing them, feeding them, arming them, clothing them, protecting them. Who?
And then, the obvious question is this: What can every day Americans like those of us here do to stop this?
Can’t write to our Congress or President, since they obviously don’t give a flying f@#*.
Am I the only one getting tired of the fact that there is no righteous leadership on this planet for these women and children? Not just in the Congo but in Iraq, lots of other countries and right here in the United States!
The Congo might be a great place for the Blackwater mercenaries! Maybe we can get them out of Iraq and send them into the Congo to kick these murderers asses! Sorry, but it’s so frustrating! I read these articles and I want to call “Rambo” to go in and find these criminals and lock them up!
Think about it. There is no “Third World”. Any one of us could get on a plane and make our way right into the site of these disasters tomorrow. These are real women and children suffering and dying.
Am I the only one who feels like I’m living in a nightmare? All this is turning into a Commonbaddream.
Abbybwood: No, you are not the only one!!
I just received an alert from Democracy.com that has a lot of info about this. There is a bill in Congress that addresses this issue. Below is a link to the organization that is supporting the bill with a place for you to contact your congress critter. Hope the link works.
https://my.care.org/campaign/iwdaction_dems
Thanks for all you do!!
I was reading about a community in Chile called La Victoria where the women re-organized thier society for protection during the Pinochet regime. This is what these women and thier children need to do. It was actually pretty effective.
The UN could perform a lot more peacekeeping if it cancelled the membership of the US. This cancellation should be a top priority of the world community.
IRC Americas Program | La Victoria, Chile: Half a Century Building Another World
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4742
Here is a link about the community if you are interested
Good am, Rebel Farmer and Treefrog,
I thank you both so much. My groups, I feel, have not seen the forest for the trees, I am pretty much on my on, except 2 lovely women that help whenever, I have my own chapter, hours with the never ending, legislation, motions, writs, CCR, calls, emails, 10 hours a day. I tried and figured it out myself with a little help from my friends, Beatles, Marvin Gaye, those were the days, not really I just prefer to sing every now and then.
I lost sight, me a woman, a mom with one daughter 18, Turkish Muslim, Turkey is ok, not an Islamic State, secular democracy yet Taliban in Afghanistan again, USA destroyed Iraq, they have a Shi’i majority, very Sharia like, in IRAQ NOW, this is how we helped. bush and his BFF the Arabic Sheiks, sit and sip chai, as a young woman is sentenced for being gang raped. If not for the grace of God(dess), I am so overwhelmed, sickened, strengthened, disgusted and homicidal at 2:33 am, up for the duration. My 30 year old is Cubana, my baby, how I miss her, the one, you know? She has a smile and a hand to help for whomever, whenever. My girls were raised strong physically, Kung Fu and Ice Hockey, and EDUCATION< EDUCATION< EDUCATION. I never wanted them to have a partner that was abusive or uncaring and them not being capable of opening and walking out that door.
Thanks so
Peace
There’s no room for misanthropism here. This is simply a “bad apple” scenario, groups of men selected for their twisted cruelty and desire to thrive in atrocity. It will happen whereever chaos like this is allowed to thrive. It’s “High Noon” in the Congo, and we need to send in Gary Cooper…and yes, Grace Kelley. Generally I’m against capital punishment but these militiamen should be shot like dogs (and that’s a slur to most decent dogs I know).
The corporate governments are increasingly utilizing this new form of “reporting” which read as some sort of mini-novelette so that they can stir up angst. To fall into the trap of reading that kind of crap is to distance yourself from the facts and issues which really delineate any conflict. That type of article is as unworthy as the so-called “reporting” by the “embedded” journalists who are nothing more than an extension of the propaganda division of the pentagon.
@ ipenek “This is simply a “bad apple” scenario..” au contraire, mon ami! This is the way men behave when given permission, as during “war”, however defined as such. Read some of the accounts by women during and after WWII. Read how differently genocide plays out for women. Read the stories of the “Comfort Women” of China. ‘Twas ever thus. Another aspect of this patriarchal sport called war. The Western man is no better than the perpetrators of the Saudi example, or the Taliban, or the sweatshops, or human traders, etc. It’s only the rule of law that keeps him in check. All the recent taser deaths and the Rodney King brutality show that if given even a bit of leeway, his mask of civilization falls off.
…not a bad-apple scenario at all, but a systemic fact.
Brian O’Connell is a writer for the Sydney Morning Herald. We don’t know in what part of the paper this article was placed. Every writer has their own way of writing, and obviously, and like so many other writers do and have done over the years, journalists choose a certain way of writing about the events they are reporting on. Brian O’Connell chose to present this horrible state of affairs in the form of an entry in a diary, for example. To see this as propaganda is absurd to me. What reason would the writer have to propagandize what is happening to the women in the Congo?
In my opinion, the way chosen to tell this story of what is occurring NOW, makes an even stronger impression on the reader. It sure did so for me.
jmacneil, are you suggesting that the reader of this article dismiss it as nothing more than garbage not even worth reading? Because if you are, that to me suggests that you could care less about these atrocities – one of many happening daily around the world.
I for one do care about what is happening to these defenseless women, and I am always amazed at the strength people find within themselves to continue with life and try to escape from the insanity.
As anyone who has left the USA and visited some parts of the world where terrible things are happening or have recently happened would attest to is that man’s cruelty knows no bounds. How fortunate you are to be able to have a computer and the Internet – how fortunate we all are. How fortunate that in the USA, while certainly not something to look up to these past few years, we are all – even the poorest of the poor – infinitely better off than the woman used in the article to symbolize what is happening to all women there.
Propaganda. Well, if it is, it’s certainly much better than the propaganda being dished out daily in huge quantities in the USA.
Save the phoney outraged bullshit for practicing on your peers at Langley. That crass type of article is utilized for one purpose only and it is agenda driven and orchestrated in conjunction with the dictates and practices of a mandate. And it is not better than the type of propaganda that you morons were previously accustomed to dispersing. It is actually inferior because it has less factual reporting to mix with the bullshit. You fool yourself by believing in your own nonsense because it is required by your hierarchy to display results to ascend to the next pay grade. What you don’t realize, and can’t realize, is that the people opposed to your evil system are smarter than you and they are not fooled in the least by your phoney sensitivity and they will be even less impressed in the future now that your scumbag government has revealed itself to be the criminal organization which it has always been known to be.
Isn’t the Congo and most if not all of the other so called third world countries a victims of the USA’s shameless/predatory “economic hitmen”? It looks like the USA has a huge debt that is due to the “third world”.
Isn’t it about time for the USA to start paying on that huge debt, and to find other jobs for all the economic hitmen, as well as those who are employed by the so called “department of defense” and their contractors?
Maybe some of them can be sent to Africa and Latin America to build power, water, & sewage lines for these poor people.
@jmacneil - maybe a visit to a good doctor would help. yes, the world is run by Vicious Gangs of Armed Thugs (the MIC Complex)- the above is a report on the fallout on that. yes, there are forces behind the roving gangs of brutes in the DRC such as corporate interests in resources - oil, minerals, lumber, diamonds - why don’t you lash out at them? yes, a lot of these articles on the violent abuse of assorted identified groups are manipulations, as we saw with all the articles on how nasty the Taliban were to women, and then we discover noone really gives a toot. !! BUT !! direct your tantrum where it belongs. and the rest of us should get off the keyboard and pressure the politicians who MAY want or be able to do something to end the atrocities. how about you? apply that rage where it can make a difference. Energy like that can do a lot of good if you know how to direct it. Work on that.
Last year the United States exported more guns and impliments of murder and destruction then the next five exporters combined including China and Russia!!! These things don’t end up in somebody’s closet to be used during hunting season…unless its human beings one is hunting.
These murderous children would be powerless without the guns “we” supply them. This could be stopped easily. But money makes people crazy…they are willing to do anything for it, no matter how vile.
The killers and their supporters are driven by delusion. Nor are those who pray for the horrible deaths of these perpetrators any less deluded. Death and destruction breeds death and destruction.
We must pray for their enlightenment as we strive for our own. This will otherwise continue until the day this ocean of suffering dries up.
Think of the implications. Suppose one morning
while resting under a tree in the forest, one of these psychos was suddenly enlightened.
Killing him would have only stopped his crimes
temporarily until some other deluded fool took his place (about 10 seconds).
Instead, not only would the full implication of his actions become instantly appairent to him…he would immediatly become a spiritual teacher able to guide infinite sentient beings, WITHOUT EXCEPTION. Only compassion without exception will dry up this ocean of suffering.
I hope the CIA is listening. You people need to rethink your delusional actions and take responsibility for their negative effect on the world. Please put my name on your list and watch me every minute…I have nothing to hide. Maybe you might learn something…certainly your parents failed you.
I pray for your enlightenment.
Alius Res Semper Video.
Thanks to the ruling elite’s control of the mass media, the world continues to look away from the huge pile of evidence that there is intelligent life on our neighboring planets that would like to help us. A man named Steven Greer has obtained sworn eyewitness testimony from over 400 former government officials in all branches of our government that our corrupt senators & congressmen refuse to deal with, because the truth would enable us to quickly end global warming, poverty and war - and that would disrupt the ruling elite’s stranglehold on the world. See disclosureproject dot org to get that information. The testimony can be seen/ found on Youtube dot com - search on ‘disclosure project’. For some reason or another nothing about this can be found on commondreams. Go figure!
I found these HOMELAND SECURITY persons aiding ALTERNET in the good, oh just the , WELL DONE WAY, used the keyboard at that horrid ALTERNET place to say OH MY, something has gone H R 1955, fix it pleeez, now no NOTES FROM A GOOD REPUBLICAN< BY CHOICE…
I think I visited here inthe am, realusers, realtime, HOMEGROWN,
TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT 9/11, about DOCTOR RON PAUL and he is lovely and I AGREE FOR NOT HAVING BABIES IS RADICAL.
MAYBE IF I am UNCOMMONLY GOOD, CLICKS withsighthereIhope
OK< PATRIOT ACT ENFORCERS piss off, apparently Alternet hates us gals that R common and REPUBLICAN, WTF< this resolution is still in special committees
Medusa, I blew the whistle at ALTERNET and Commondreams, Alternet will not put my posts up, while their damn site is going haywire with the FEEB’s listening, using our comments from this site under others usernames. If this does not post, bail me out. H R 1955 STILL IN SPECIAL COMMITTEES, so sorry, HOMELAND SECURITY
Hey WTF…
U.S militias, be they some red-necks or ‘cowboys’ do NOTHING to protect The Consitution.
I venture to say most of those YA-Hoo’s don’t give a damn about most of the document other than their Second Amendment rights.
As to the subject at hand… brutality can not be ignored or explained away by the powers that be without great dangers to their future, but until such time very little will be offered by outside powers. I wonder where all the Holocaust sympathy (sp) is for these folks? Here, we all have a chance to alter the sad course of history before ‘all is said and done’.
I am worse than those who are un-aware and do nothing because I know of the terror and even still do nothing. Shame on us.
medusa,
So you believe half the people you encounter are potential murderers, rapists, monsters. My sympathies, you must live a frightened life. You should jump at my suggestion that you’re suffering from a bigotry just about equal to racial prejudice. You can choose to do something about it. Taking the Rodney King example as representative of male behavior is a good example of how people are fooled. If you think cops are a “normal” male sampling then you haven’t met many cops. In my opinion most cops are quite deviant. I quite agree that there are far too many maladjusted males that are easily pushed to brutality, probably due to the vast prevalance of child abuse. One thing that even feminists deny is that boys are treated like dirt the world over. Many of these militias are probably simultaneously programming young boys to repeat their behavior, etc…
rtdrury November 25th, 2007 1:04 am
You wrote:
The UN could perform a lot more peacekeeping if it cancelled the membership of the US. This cancellation should be a top priority of the world community.
I agree we probably do not deserve to belong to the U.N. However, if we are not there the UN won’t be able to pay its bills, would probably get kicked out of its NYC buildings, and would know even less about what we are doing than it does. now. Unfortunately, it just won;t work.
So, it’s us, not the UN that will have to deal with our own current evil. Don’t mourn, organize!
O roe
I want to say hello to you. I think you have some interesting ideas about family and children. I especially liked your post about the challenges facing women.
As for the comment on gorillas by the aid worker. IS NOT a SHAME! They are both tragedies And one Human life is just as important as any gorilla. The women made a good statement. WHERE do we as a civilized country stand while this is happening to all the children and women in the world and in this region? I certainly know where you stand MR. Save the gorillas.
This is where BUSH should put military, until those men can get some education as to how to treat people, children and women. Violence begets violence and it’s learned from an early age. Education is needed and we can not do that without having strength behind it. Shame on us for trying to explain things away in the comfort of our homes and at the computer!!
If this story doesn’t tug one’s heart nothing ever will.
It troubles me that beyond armchair sympathy, I have contributed nothing to ameliorate the suffering of the hapless women. Hopefully some brilliant mind would find a way to channelise the collective revulsion of the decent segment of the world community into concrete steps to wipe out such barbarism.
bandido had it corrent: “After society is destroyed the corporations have an easier time sucking up resources, so its all good. Welcome to the new global economics.”
My only disagreement is that it is NOT new — it’s been going on for several hundred years. Corporate ethics are non-existant in many of these huge corporations (Exxon, Ford, Haliburton, etc. etc. etc.)
Many corporations often will supply both sides of wars (read about WWII especially — but true for all wars).
STOP CONSUMERISM! STOP WATCHING ALL THE TV ADS! STOP WATCHING TELEVISION! DON’T LISTEN TO THE CRAP THE COMMERCIAL TV NEWS PUTS OUT!
SAVE YOUR MONEY! STAY OUT OF DEBT! PUT YOUR MONEY WHERE IT COUNTS! DON’T LISTEN TO THE CRAP THAT YOU MUST CONSUME TO KEEP THE CORPORATIONS PROFITABLE — IT’S ALL CRAP!
BOYCOTT CHRISTMAS BUYING THIS YEAR AND GIVE TO THE ORGANIZATIONS THAT WILL STOP THIS HOLOCAUST IN AFRICA!
Get used to it. You’ll never stop it. Because you haven’t the stomach to do what it will take to eliminate it. You need to find, (one country at a time) those responsible, up to and including heads of state and remove them and theirs from the world gene pool. They, ( and their willing lackeys), must be eliminated. From all arms manufacturers who false flag people into killing one another, to the whore-ish politicians who dupe us into making them and those who feed them their high protein diets. You haven’t the resources or the back-bone to see it through to the end.
So, get used to it.
“People talk sometimes
of bestial cruelty, but that’s a great injustice and insult to the
beasts; a beast can never be so cruel as a man, so artistically cruel.
The tiger only tears and gnaws, that’s all he can do. He would never
think of nailing people by the ears, even if he were able to do it.
These Turks took a pleasure in torturing children, -too; cutting the
unborn child from the mothers womb, and tossing babies up in the air
and catching them on the points of their bayonets before their
mothers’ eyes. Doing it before the mothers’ eyes was what gave zest to
the amusement.” From THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV .The cruelity of man is nothing new.That is not to say it should be tolerated I heard a BBC report a few months ago on the situation in the DRC.I literally and physically crumpled up in dismay and cried.I required my 2 teenage boys to listen to the program as home school lesson.The BBC report was about a woman who lost her family was brutally raped, inslaved and left for dead but when the reporter asked what should be done with the Interahamwe who were the perpetrators . She said that because she was a Christian that evil could not be repaid with evil, but couldn’t someone make these people leave her country.Evil thrives when good men do nothing.There’s another passage from the Brothers K that states that somehow we are all responsible for one another.
treeplanter:
“Evil thrives when good men do nothing.”
Amen
I think this is appropriate to post here:
First They Came for the Jews
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.
Pastor Martin Niemöller
Often talk seems futile in the face of the evil.We cannot personally stop the actions of all persons intent on such actions.But we can speak out. In this country we can vote for those who would do something.I have heard that people outside the US ask why we voted for GWB. Even if you feel that the 2000 and 2004 national elections were stolen ,still a lot of people voted for GWB.Just check forums such as Yahoo Answers you’ll see that there is still support for the current occupant. We need real leaders who will stand for real decent values and not just when money is involved.
Just imagine if gorillas, as well as other animal species that we have commodified, exploited and tortured for our own “benefit,” could communicate to us in news articles. I believe many of them would describe horror and suffering much like that Christine Shuler Deschryver writes about with regard to these horribly victimized women and their families. I also believe that this kind of brutal gender violence is based on human power hierarchies that are ultimatley grounded in human relations with other species. The belief that we can do whatever we want to animals because they are “resources” and exist only for our benefit with no inherent rights or worth is easily extended to less powerful humans. Women, people with less technological control over nature, people with less powerful weapons, etc. are perceived as “animal-like” and may therefore be exploited or abused.
If you want to help spread the word about the outrages in DRC and if you want to help with donations to Panzi Hospital, contact v-day.org.
HIV is a hoax.
I bring great empowering and excellent N E W S:
Our belief in the systematic bought-and-paid-for inattention of the mass media may in fact be an illusion and gov’t hype to completely dis-empower us to “work the system”., as evidence points to what they’ve actually been doing - and it’s “simple” repetitive phones calls and threats to hurt circulation, not total subjugation!
OK, it might be simple, but that is hardly the same as easy, right?
Please follow this link here, for ‘Confessions of “an editor who ran Bush propaganda”‘, where in summary that editor states that:
Wow, isn’t insidiously clever to make us think we :
(1.) Have a liberal minding media, but then
(2.) Convince us that it’s really not going to speak the TRUTH, but
(3.) it still may be POSSIBLE to find truth again, if we finesse it as well as the shrub’s SHOCK troops do, as they’re clearly massively funded and organized for the ‘duration’.
(4.) The re-Thuglicans likely have a quite distributed tag-team fon tree for each media outlet ALL across the globe, and duplication of pressuring (to own editor) would only improve their (or OUR ODDs) for impact.
(5.) OK, don’t even bother with FauxNews, but maybe ‘the denuded emperor pix’ will leak out?
What GRASS ROOTS ACTION does it take from any of US?
_a._ Any person willing to call, and call again (watching the news wires, and being aware each day)
_b._ Heavy hitter progressive thinkers that will ACT (like STARS, Media celebrities, actors, chamber Commerce, talkers) with real influence, and or patience.
_c._ Lots of ‘cold calls’ in attempts to find each media
_d._ Attempt to convert retrenched re-Thuglicans as “double-agents” for TRUTH, as they know who to call
Like I said initially, this is SIMPLE, but it’s hardly EASY.
We ALL can Go for IT, as we deserve the best media that OUR money (remember WE are the actual circulation- right?) can influence and buy.
P.S. Thanks to inspiration posts by DEMETRIA, URTHSONG (please keep singing 4 US), SAFIYAH, AYMON (one of the sharpest minds we have), PEACHMCD (simplistic reductionism that conflates all religion and judges…, more please), and TIJUANA (please consider that the WARs on European soil, were ALL fought by ALL - there was/is no escape - and their shared wisdom is something sorely needed by the US’s inflated and idiotic HUBRIS that we know about WAR - sorry wrong channel. When several US cities are fire-bombed into oblivion - and millions of our family member die - then I will listen to you talk about the European’s ideas)
Namaste
__ __ __ __ We must be the change
__ __ __ __ we wish to see in the world __ Gandhi
I too believe that abuse of women and children is connected to abuse of the rest of the natural world. Violence is about control. When a man seeks control over nature he is able to justify the plunder.When he seeks control over others the quickest, easiest way to gain that control is to brutalize and terrorize them. And only men who are desperately and unendingly afraid seek that kind of control. It is well proven that it is the cowards who are the most vicious and brutal.
But this is not just in “lands over there”. Domestic violence is alive and well and thriving in the US and women die everyday at the hands of someone they love and who is supposed to love them.
I agree with Ipenek above that “One thing that even feminists deny is that boys are treated like dirt the world over.” Men need to take on the work of dealing with all of the men who have been taught to be violent and savage. This is not women’s work. This is for men to do. It is for men to reinvent what it means to be a man. To fix all of the things that have been screwed up by thousands of years of patriarchy….because men are the only ones who can step aside and relinquish control and learn other ways of being. Do it now. And then ask the women in your lives how to live.
Bravo nspire!
>>Every time, without fail, if there was anything on the wire that supported the Bush* administration and we did not run it prominently and “favorably,” the very next day, we would get a stream of phone calls from angered conservatives who railed on and on about the “liberal media.”
Exactly.
It takes merely organizing people, exciting them, motivating them to action.
The psychological differences between liberals and conservatives are real and likely contribute to this type of difference. Conservatives focus on money for a lot of reasons, and that gains them power. Liberals have other strengths.
I look to a model like the Courage Campaign. They do excellent grassroots organizing, and are real. Moveon, DailyKos, etc., appear unwilling to really engage the people in ways that don’t merely increase power for centrists like Dianne Feinstein.
CAVEWOMAN,
Please, this “airplane of ours” that we are all flying within, has but two wings, so that when you tell us MEN “sorry about that wing falling off on your side of the plane”, I have to think that you’re only seeing half of the circle.
We’re ALL in this ALTOGETHER, and when the “plane” drops out of the sky, can you really seriously think that your kids will listen politely when you say “it was all of those bad daddy’s problem to fix themselves” that caused then end of civilization.
I think NOT. Let’s get to work on the entire circle of reverence for all life, so that includes both men and woman? I grant you that men have serious problems, but then, woman are our best hope to solve them (consider the alternative(s) = NONE)
Namaste
__ __ __ __ We must be the change
__ __ __ __ we wish to see in the world __ Gandhi
nspire,
I agree. It is up to all of us. I believe that for the healing to include both men and women and the entire circle of life that men need to relinquish some control and let others step into the space that is vacated. Violence is about control and men have largely been in control for a very long time now. This is damaging to men and women alike. I believe that it is the work of men to address the violence perpetrated by men around the cirle of life. Then men and women can get down to the business of creating a new circle that respects life where no one group is in control but all are.
warm regards,
Treefrog,
thanks for that link. I just finished reading that article and was inspired by this version of “women’s work”.
Dominick offers a very good quote from WWII in rememberance of the Holocaust.
I am befuddled by the constant reminders we are given about such past horrors, yet we seem unable to act concerning present acts of terror.
Are we like “deer in the headlights”, frozen in disbelief? If so, then we know our fate.
I believe Margaret Mead offered a good thought (which I’m sure many of you have read):
something to the affect of… ” it’s no wonder that one person’s action can change the world,
indeed it’s the only thing that can.” (? wording)
CAVEWOMAN@100 — I heartely agree, thank you for responding.
Your comments are very perceptive of the core issue of:
“Violence is about control and men have largely been in control for a very long time now. This is damaging to men and women alike.”
The difficulty herein is that underneath the ACTIONS (DO’ing), and the PROCESSIONs (HAVE’ing) = =
we first have to deal with the BEINGNESS issues that all else springs forth out of (as it is SOURCE for ALL)
Please consider reading some of my other posts about this issue:
here, and
here.
Namaste
__ __ __ __ We must be the change
__ __ __ __ we wish to see in the world __ Gandhi
CAVEWOMAN@100 — Please also consider reading some of my other posts about this issue:
here, and
here,
CAVEWOMAN@100 — Please also consider reading some of my other posts about this issue:
here, and
here
Namaste
__ __ __ __ We must be the change
__ __ __ __ we wish to see in the world __ Gandhi