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Activists Slam World's "Grotesque Indifference" to DR Congo
TORONTO, Canada - International lust for the enormous mineral and resource riches of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) abetted by international indifference has turned much of country into a colossal "rape mine" where more than 300,000 women and girls have been brutalised, say activists.
Children who have been abandoned or orphaned by war eat dinner at the Don Bosco center in Goma in eastern Congo, in this November 20, 2008 file photo. More than five million people have died, most from lack of access to food or basic health, during a decade of fighting and upheaval in Congo, according to aid agencies. This makes Congo's enduring conflict the deadliest since World War Two. (REUTERS/Finbarr O'Reilly/Files) "Rape
is being used as a deliberate tool to control people and territory,"
said Eve Ensler, a celebrated U.S. playwright and founder of V-Day, a
global movement in 120 countries to end violence against women and
girls.
"The rapes are systematic, horrific and often involve bands of rebels infected with HIV/AIDS," Ensler, who recently returned from the DRC, told IPS.
Ensler was in Toronto to help raise funds for the Panzi Hospital in the DRC's South Kivu Province where many rape victims are brought. Once a maternity hospital, Panzi Hospital now provides free care and refuge to 3,500 victims of sexual violence each year. Denis Mukwege leads a team of six surgeons who routinely work 18-hour days to repair women's extensive internal injuries.
Hundreds of women and children were raped yesterday, hundreds more today. This is an economic war that uses terror as its main weapon to ensure warlords and their bands control regions where international companies mine for valuable metals like tin, silver and coltan, or extract lumber and diamonds, Ensler said.
Coltan is a rare and extremely valuable metal used in cell phones, DVD players, computers, digital cameras, video games, vehicle air bags, and more. It has long been implicated as both the source of funding and primary cause of the ongoing conflict and extraordinary violence against women.
"A friend mapped the locations of the mass rapes in the DRC and they correspond to coltan mining regions," she said.
This "blood coltan" -- akin to blood diamonds -- generates billions of dollars of sales every year for electronics manufacturers in rich countries and brings hundreds of millions of dollars to rebels and others who control the coltan-producing regions. Coltan is also produced in other countries, and the DRC's "blood coltan" is often transported to those countries to give it a sheen of conflict-free provenance.
Over five million people have been killed in the ongoing war following the overthrow of the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997. The United Nations' largest-ever peacekeeping force of 17,000 has been in the DRC since 2000. However, it is a vast country the size of Western Europe, and with few roads.
Last Jan. 22, rebel groups signed a peace treaty with an ineffective DRC government accused of corruption and complicit in the rape of women. Despite the treaty, thousands of women and young girls in the eastern Congo have been raped this year in the region that borders Rwanda and Uganda where coltan and other minerals are found. Large-scale fighting resumed in July, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee their homes.
"The failure of the international community has created a catastrophe in the DRC," said Stephen Lewis, former U.N. special envoy for AIDS in Africa and founder of the Stephen Lewis Foundation, a charity that supports 300 grassroots projects in Africa. Headquartered in Toronto, the foundation is a financial supporter of the Panzi Hospital.
Last June, the U.N. Security Council, chaired by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, passed Security Council Resolution 1820 condemning the use of sexual violence against women and girls in conflict and post-conflict situations.
Lewis told IPS that while the resolution was an unprecedented agreement by the world community, "not a thing has happened since then. It is as if the world exalted in the fine words of the resolution and then let its intent die."
He is also critical of the U.N. secretary-general's special envoy to the region, Olusegun Obasanjo, the former president of Nigeria, who is meeting rebel and government leaders but who has not met with the women of the Congo. Women must be brought to the table, Lewis said. They were also excluded during the previous peace negotiations.
"We have to stop the raping or the war will never end," he said.
The U.N. Security Council recently voted to send an extra 3,000 peacekeepers to eastern Congo to help protect civilians affected by the fighting. By most accounts, that effort will fall far short. "With 50,000 U.N. peacekeepers, the women of the DRC could be protected," said Lewis.
Three years ago, the global community agreed it has a responsibility to protect people when a government is unable or unwilling to protect its own citizens from the worst violations of human rights. However, there has been widespread failure to live up to that commitment, which Lewis characterises as "an appalling and grotesque indifference by the world community".
Lewis, a Canadian, is especially outraged that Canada -- which championed the "responsibility to protect" principle -- has been "completely and utterly silent on the DRC".
However, he is hopeful that the present Canadian government modeled on the Bush neo-conservative administration will be brought down next week and a centre-left coalition government will bring a strong Canadian voice in support of ending the violence against women in the DRC.
The new U.S. government headed by President-elect Barack Obama could also be a very powerful force for change. "I see a real gleam of light at last," said Lewis.
The violence and conflict in the DRC will not be easy to resolve, but is no harder than some of the other global issues like HIV/AIDS, he said.
Both Lewis and Ensler have been involved in efforts in the DRC to change things for women. Some 90 forums were held in the eastern Congo last September where women spoke out about the violence and rape. "No one talks about rape, there is a social stigma where the victims are shunned," said Ensler.
A new village for rape victims Ensler calls the "City of Joy" is being built near the Panzi Hospital. She envisions it as leadership centre where rape survivors support and learn from each other, and then teach others that the larger community is responsible for rape, not the women.
"The Congo's greatest resource is its brilliant and resilient women and girls," she said. "With a little international support, these generous and amazing women can turn this horrific situation around."
- Posted in
7 Comments so far
Show AllDWIGHT BAKER
following is a copy of an e-mail to a pastor in the CONGO. I have not heard from him in some time---- hope he has not been killed. Some in CONGRESS and some of those from the BUSH administration have great financial interest in the CONGO. So that means GENOCIDE is OK ----- GOD FORBID.
----- Original Message -----
From: emmanuel@livingpentecostal.org.au
To: Dwight Baker
Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2008 9:35 PM
Subject: Re: EMMANUEL JUST READ OF THE TERROR OF HORRORS THAT ARE DESTINED TO BEGIN LESS WE GET BUSY
Dear Dwight,
Hello,
Thanks you for lot of information you send to me, but I am like to repond you question : all people in congo, speak french like the first language, but we have the good interpreter in our church.
I DONT SEE THE FRENCH LANGUAGE AS A PROBLEM I CAN SEND THE TEXT IN FRENCH.
But everyone does not use the internet, for this I am thinging with our leaders who are in Congo, how we are going to do this Bible study started, all peoples together in Kinshasa.
Our congregation in kinshasa we have 700 peoples, but with Congo River Ministry is affiliated with 20 churches in Kinshasa and together we can have more than 2000 peoples.
BROTHER EMMANUEL I BELEIVE WE SHOULD THINK ABOUT EDUCATING 20 CHOSEN ONES AT A TIME. MAYBE THE PASTORS TEACHERS AND LEADERS THAT CAN HAVE THE TIME TO READ AND STUDY PRAY AND MEDIATE ON THE STUDY MATERIALS INTENTELY.
The population of congo is too poor, but each church can recommended 100 to 200 peoples for this course, but we must ensure that this course is well planned and given a Certificate after the course to motive them.
THE COURSE IS WELL PLANNED AND CERTIFCATES WILL BE ISSUED UPON SATISFACTORY COMPLETION.
Together we must create interest in the children of God, can follow this teachings. This why, I ask you to be patient, to have agreement of all pastors and leaders in congo.
Thanks you
Next time , and love in Lord.
Emmanuel
Good article on the conditions of life especially for women and children.
I am aware of grotesque colonial history of Congo and the current horrors, as I am sure many others here are. The way the current situation is reported it sounds so chaotic, hellish and as though the crimes are being committed by ordinary young men dispersed and running amok in the domestic population. That may partly explain the apparent disinterest and lack of activism. We don't really understand the dynamics and know what to do.
In my lifetime, news reporting on Africa and particularly Congo has attributed conflict to tribalism or superstition or customs, when actually the main driving force of much of the conflict was the desire of imperialism for the Congo's great natural wealth. At times moneyed interests bought off one ethnic group against another or bribed a leader, but there was nothing especially African about that.
In news stories, economic or imperialist causes have been traditionally buried in something similar to Edward Said's orientalism, a convenient exotification that ignores the very familiar human and economic underpinnings of life in a different culture, particularly when we want to get something out of the country. However in this case I am having trouble imagining what is going on.
After so many many decades of thuggery and brutality by mining companies and their domestic agents, after the deliberate destruction of traditional agriculture and fishing, after the creation of desperate poverty, after the destruction of transportation and infrastructure and the food supply and lawful government, is it possible that the population has been plunged into a state of complete despair and amorality? You cannot have a program of rape without people agreeing to carry it out and able to remain in a state of sexual excitement while tearing apart the insides of women and children.
It would help us to get out the stage of frozen shock if we had some better analysis of causes so we could imagine solutions. There are so many bad things going on in the world I think that even people of good will can get fatigued and decide to focus on battles where the solutions are more obvious and possibly achievable. Who are these rapists? Maybe they are the brothers and cousins of the victims, victims themselves in a way.
Are there any Congolese groups that we can trust for analysis and to guidance? Is there any program of international action that is being recommended by them or by international groups? Or is an externally based rescue operation in order? Who should do it? Coltan mining seems to be part of the problem... but is there a call to boycott anything or do something concrete?
Joe
Willful neglect would be a good description for the "civilized" world's handling of
matters African. There is just enough put into relief of African problems (black) to be able to claim that an effort is being made, but in actual fact be it the ethnic cleansing in parts of Africa, the rape described here, the AIDS epidemic, cholera, malaria, etc, the desired result (unspoken) is that all those bothersome black fellas and gals will simply die off or murder each other, leaving the vast resources to us. Pardon my using of the N word, but isn't the only "good nigger" the one that is making wealth for his white masters? That always has been the case if submerged beneath modern political sensitivity and "correctness".
NotesfromtheEdge
Eve Ensler, as always, is a brave pioneer in the ongoing struggles of women who daily face the threat of rape. In the situation of the Congo, it is true that the literal 'gutting' of Africa is ongoing, in the tearing apart of women in these horrific assaults. Africans doing 'it' to each other, and unknowingly damaging their own heritage and genociding themselves. It is the oldest trick in the Imperialist's 'book', or the 'A to Z of Colonization'. From the 1st contacts with the outside world, or the world of Imperialist Europe, the People of the Congo have suffered the brutality of that racism that began with Belgium's King Leopold and his amassing enormous wealth from enslaving the Congolese in their homeland, and forcing them into mining the mineral resources where they lay, in the Congo: then gold and diamonds, now Coltan for Telecommunications.
When a society is systematically shredded by an outside brutal and dominant militarized mind/mentality, the horrors that are unleashed are like a 'Shock Doctrine', similar to what the bush regime unleashed upon the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, whose intent it is to unravel the very 'web of life' upon whom it is practiced. This is what sociopaths reign upon the unsuspecting people of the innocent nations who happen to have mineral resources that corporations want, {be it oil or Coltan} or rather, that their CEO's want, purely for selfish gain. That is, to live lifestyles that are beyond what any human needs to afford them enough to be happy and live sustainably. There is no reason to allow these people to destroy the cultures of the planet and the environment.
Every act of compassion we move towards, can help to sustain the women and children of the Congo, and thereby the world, until the world can gain the understanding of how this came to be and recognize that at the root of the problem is always poverty, which is almost always coupled with the lack of education. In the young men of a nation, this poverty can lead to anger and alienation from humanity, from women, from the process of life, where violence and death are a salvation from the poverty. This is the problem at the root/the heart of it.
The CEO's of the respective corporations must be educated as to the poverty of their greed, and how it is now affecting not only the stability of nations, but the sustainability of life on the planet. The poverty goes both ways. There are CEO's who have become aware, and changed the way they do business, to promote sustainable patterns for life, even in the business world, the business world of mineral acquisition in the countries, the 'innocent nations', where they do 'business'.
I think we have a similar idea of what led up to this situation. I agree that when you cannot see a long term solution, acts of help and kindness will have to do in the meantime.
I am not sure that educating the CEO's will be too successful. Maybe a few will have an Amazing Grace moment, but most will sit beside their swimming pools, act as witty raconteurs with their friends and ignore inconvenient truths. They couldn't have gotten into those positions without having perfected the ability to block out the suffering of others.
Exposure and embarrassment might work. Publicity and picketing their estates might work. People like that care about their social image - or at least other members of the family might.
Question is - what would we be asking them to do? Who said something like "power concedes nothing without a demand"? I would like to know more about who is organizing and paying the rape squads. That would be one proposal possibly - to pay those young men to go to rehabilitation or offer them refuge, a place in which they could rest and eat and be safe and cease their activities. The companies should also have to pay for medical care for the women and support the orphans.
On our side, we could help the UN provide some emergency funds and armed protection for NGO's who assist the people of Congo. But I wish there were more ideas from people who understand better than I do.
Joe
Given the extremely bad situation in the DRC, I wonder why people would bother to think about bringing Bible study there, rather than working to help the victims and potential victims of serious abuses, and worse, FIRST. That's referring to the post by Dwight Baker. I respect and appreciate Bible study, but it's not what would be on my mind when considering the situation in the DRC, Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, Haiti, and many other countries.
With that said, I understand the situation there is very bad and has been for a decade or longer, but the best resources I've found for this, so far, are some authors with articles posted at www.globalresearch.ca, and Keith Harmon Snow's website, www.allthingspass.com .
The IPS article and others speak of the abuses against Congolese women, but don't necessarily tell readers who the perpetrators of these acts are and that many aren't Congolese, but brought in from a neighbouring country, or two; one of the things Keith Snow mentions or explains. But another thing he tells readers about is the basically complete genocide of the Pygmies; plus much more. Details, want plenty of details? He provides much. He names corporations of the West, the U.S., Ca, and European too; and he also names people, the guilty ones, some of the leaders anyway. He states what minerals they're after, and so on.
Thank you for the links. I just skimmed a few articles and they were very informative. I will read more. I am especially interested in the list of companies involved in the mining.
I hope that as I / we become more familiar with the 2008 details of situation and participants in Congo, the answers as to what to do will become more apparent.
Joe