Sunday, October 28, 2007

What about the Congo?


I was struck by my email feed to the Darfur, a Hell on Earth blog.
In this email the horrors taking place in the Congo were mentioned, and the person quoted seemed to express confusion as to the lack of concern.
I think the lack of concern is directly tied to the lack of awareness.
How many of you are aware there's a problem of greater intensity than what has beset the people of Darfur? The violence in the democratic republic of the Congo formerly known as Zaire is tied to the same group of Hutu Militia responsible for the genocide in Rwanda.

Here is the direct quote:

Congo’s crisis is of greater human magnitude than Darfur’s, but - unlike Darfur’s - it is clearly solvable. Despite Congo’s mixture of ethnic rivalries, contested natural resources and armed interference by neighbors, why am I so confident? Because there’s a proven track record of international cooperation successfully stopping Congolese bloodletting, as it did in 2002 when a United Nations peacekeeping force helped end the four-year civil war.

Eastern Congo is experiencing a nightmarish epidemic of violence — rape, murder and pillaging — which has its roots in Rwanda’s genocide. As reported in the New York Times, groups of former Hutu militia members (who, as the FDLR, perpetrated the Rwandan genocide) continue their cruelty in Eastern Congo.
-Josh Ruxin for Nicholas D. Kristoff speaks on a Solvable Problem


How convenient that the rainforests in the Congo are also being threatened...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

There's a presidential election coming up, and all the candidates and the media just sweep Darfur, and crisis in Africa under the rug.

They asked Hilary Clinton what she will do about Darfur and she dodge the question twice before giving a direct answer.

What will she do, the same thing her husband did for Rwanda, nothing. After it's all said and done, she will issue an apology on behalf of the United States who claimed they didn't know the extent of the "civil war" that killed at least 800,000 humans.

I think what you do and what many other bloggers, helps. It gets the word out, and eventually we can put more pressure on government to act.

PurpleZoe said...

I couldn't agree more about the lack of concern coming from our 'potential' commander in chiefs.

Hilary has proven herself to be no better than the current usurper of the 'throne'.
She seems to agree with the same things, using a softer voice. Hopefully the people are smarter than they were.

This piece of info is disturbing as well considering democrats agreed to pass it as well:

http://www.roguegovernment.com/
news.php?id=4682

http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=RjALf12PAWc

http://www.democraticunderground.com/
discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x65010

Fortunately everything anyone does to raise awareness has a very strong impact, especially overtime.
Thankyou for this comment. I needed to read that at just that moment.

Stay strong.