The Democratic Republic of the Congo

The violent situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, aka "The Congo" and formerly known as Zaire is complex and has a long history. The purpose of this blog is only give basics on global issues of importance. So, there will be a zillion details that I am leaving out, of course. I desire in no way to minimize the complexity of the issue, nor do I claim to have a firm grasp on it, but in keeping with my purpose, I will attempt to be brief. (After writing this, I will correct now myself and simply apologize for it being long, but I really tried! Please read it anyway...it's a horrible thing and the more of us that understand the issue a little bit, the better.)

The Congo is a large country in central Africa; it is about 1/4 the size of the US, in area. Basically, an influx of refugees from neighboring countries fled and streamed into the Congo in the mid nineties. Additionally, prior to and during that and since then, as with the violent struggle for diamonds in this region of the world, addressed in an earlier blog entry below, this war is in large part due to a struggle over resources, specifically diamonds, water, tin, copper and coltan an element used in technology such as cell phones.

Since the outbreak of fighting in August 1998,
-At least 3.3 million people, mostly women, children and the elderly, are estimated to have died because of the conflict, most from disease and starvation
-More than 2.25 million people have been driven from their homes, many of them beyond the reach of humanitarian agencies.

Does this number mean anything to you? 3.3 million people is more than the number of people that live in Chicago. v It's like 6 Seattles, 8 Pittsburghs and well over 100 of the City of Athens. Dead. Either from starving or disease or violence.

This conflict involves (or has involved) various nations, and many assert that the United States is directly and indirectly responsible. Here is one quote.

"The United States military has been covertly involved in the wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a US parliamentary subcommittee has been told. Intelligence specialist Wayne Madsen, appearing before the US House subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights, also said American companies, including one linked to former President George Bush Snr, the father of the current US President, are stoking the Congo conflict for monetary gains."
— John Kakande, US Army Operated Secretly in Congo, allAfrica.com, June 17, 2001

According to www.globalissues.com when Congolese President Laurent Kabila came to power in May 1997, overthrowing the former leader, Marshall Mobutu, He had the aid of Angola, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, and Eritrea. It was believed that a revival would take place in the region. However, the situation got worse. President Kabila, also backed by the United States, was accused by rebels (made up of Congolese soldiers, Congolese Tutsi Banyamulenge, Rwandan, Ugandan and some Burundian government troops) of turning into a dictator, of mismanagement and corruption. Up until the assasination of President Kabila in January 2001, Angola, Zimbabwe, and Namibia supported the Congolese government, while the rebels were backed by the governments of Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi. It seems that a UN Peacekeeping group was deployed, but lacked forces to have much of an effect. This group, MONUC, is described by Amnesty International as being weak and ineffective. President Kabila's son, Joseph Kabila was sworn into power and in 2002 a peace agreement was signed by himself and the president of Rwanda, but none of the other involved parties. FIghting has continued despite some small international efforts including a bolstering of MONUC and a brief involvement of a French-led peacekeeping force.

-16 million people have critical food needs.
-There are 2,056 doctors for a population of 50 million; of these, 930 are in Kinshasa.
-Infant mortality rates in the east of the country have in places reached 41 per cent per year.
-Severe malnutrition rates among children under five have reached 30 per cent in some areas.
-National maternal mortality is 1837 per 100,000 live births, one of the worst in the world. Rates as high as 3,000/100,000 live births have been recorded in eastern DRC.
-DRC is ranked 152nd on the UNDP Human Development index of 174 countries: a fall of 12 places since 1992.
-2.5 million people in Kinshasa live on less than US$1 per day. In some parts of eastern DRC, people are living on US$0.18 per day.
-80 per cent of families in rural areas of the two Kivu Provinces have been displaced at least once in the past five years.
-There are more than 10,000 child soldiers. Over 15 per cent of newly recruited combatants are children under the age of 18. A substantial number are under the age of 12.
-Officially, between 800,000 and 900,000 children have been orphaned by AIDS.
40 per cent of health infrastructure has been destroyed in Masisi, North Kivu.
-Only 45 per cent of people have access to safe drinking water. In some rural areas, this is as low as three per cent.
-Four out of ten children are not in school. 400,000 displaced children have no access to education.

So how about this, to kind of bring this situation into a bit of clarity regarding how this conflict actually affects individuals. First, here is a quote from http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/Africa/DRC.asp#StruggleforPoliticalPower:

"I am convinced now ... that the lives of Congolese people no longer mean anything to anybody. Not to those who kill us like flies, our brothers who help kill us or those you call the international community.... Even God does not listen to our prayers any more and abandons us."
— Salvatore Bulamuzi, a member of the Lendu community whose parents, two wives and five children were all killed in recent attacks on the town of Bunia, north-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

And here is a personal story from a Congolese woman from the website www.womenforwomen.org

Furaha Mirindi - 34 yrs. old
"I am from Kavumu. I got married when I was 15 years old; he was 18 years old. We did not have an official ceremony or anything, but we lived together as a married couple. Together we had 6 children. I had no formal educational training. While I cannot read and write, I successfully ran a small business selling peanuts and palm oil to feed my family before we were directly affected by the war.
In 2002, there was a great deal of insecurity in my village Kavumu. I and my family left the village for a more secure village nearby. Knowing the insecurity in the surrounding areas, the village chief gave me and my family temporary refuge. The first night we spent in the new house to escape the insecurity, we were attacked. I was with my mother and two younger siblings (my younger brother and my younger sister) and my six children, as well as my sister-in-law and her seven children.
There were more than six military men that entered the house that night. My mother, my younger sister, and my sister-in-law were all raped. For me, I was raped by at least three of them. I cannot remember. I was numb. My younger sister who was raped is completely crazy now. I tried to stop them, not only because I did not want to be invaded, but I did not want them to rape me in front of my children. In my struggle with them, they hit me on my right eye. My right eye is now damaged.
After the incident, I spend six months in the hospital because of my eye and the ruptures and other damages from the rape. In addition to the physical damages of the rape, I got pregnant. I gave birth and did not even realize. You may wonder how that is possible. I was in so much pain physically and emotionally and was bedridden. I could not distinguish the pain from my eyes and the rape from the pain of giving birth. I did not have a cesarean, but the child had to be forced out of me because I did not have the courage or the energy to give birth. Ironically, the child is born with damage of the left eye, similar to the damage of my right eye. The doctor says it is because the position I was in during the eight months I was in the hospital. But it’s like a curse to me.
My husband supported me throughout the time I was in the hospital. He sold all of our possessions to pay for my medical bills. But he left sometime after the child was born. He left me not because of being raped itself. He simply could not deal with the cost of the aftermath. The costs were too high and the burdens were too heavy for him to carry. He told me that I had made him poor. The child I gave birth to after the rape, a little girl, is always sick. She needs more than we can provide. Although we were not officially married before and he had paid no bride fees as we do in our culture, before he left me he went to my family and paid the bride fees and told them that he was returning their daughter. He said that he has supported me but no longer has the means and resources to continue to do so.
My little girl is now one and half year old. She cannot walk, crawl or sit up. Clearly there are some developmental problems. I came to Bukavu with the hope that the centre for handicap children would take this child and treat her and provide for her. I am not able to attend to her needs. I love my baby even though she is a product of being brutally raped. I would like for her to have a normal childhood -- to be like other children and to one day walk and play. Unfortunately the centre did not take my baby because I, as the parent, am still alive and the centre is only for handicap children who are orphans.
I hope to find an opportunity to care for my children, all of them. I feel like I have no value. When you see your child crying because she is hungry and there is nothing that you can do about it, it’s painful. It hurts at the core of my being. The feeling of being insignificant and worthless is further enhanced because everyday is more and more difficult, especially with this baby. While I am no longer active in a church, I continue to put my faith in God. I have to believe that I will one day reconstruct my life and provide for my children and perhaps find a husband again."

Here is a story from just last month I found at http://www.europaworld.org/week207/congolesewomen14105.htm "Fighting has broken out again in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). According to reports from the UN this week. Thousands of Congolese refugees fleeing fighting between two major ethnic groups in the eastern Ituri region have poured into neighbouring Uganda, UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency said. An estimated 5,000 to 7,000 people, mostly women and children in poor health, have made their way across Lake Albert by boat to the village of Nkondo, some 285 kilometres from the Ugandan capital of Kampala."

I know, this is getting so long. Is anyone still reading this? I hope you are because it breaks my heart to write it. I just want to do something. Do you? One thing you can do, which I have, is to join Amnesty International or make a donation toan organization like UNICEF or World Vision who speak out against this violence and provide aid to refugees. Label your donation "DRC relief" or "Congo Relief." My good friend Bono, whom I've never actually met or communicated with directly, has a great organization called DATA that deals with all of this messy stuff in Africa. Donate to them! They also suggest an interesting awareness-creating project called The White Band Project...find out more about it here: http://www.whiteband.org/actnow/wbindivid/en

www.data.org

www.amnesty.org

http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/drcongo.html