-Richard Brennan
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is the third largest country in Africa after Sudan and Algeria and it is located in the heart of central Africa. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is also the fourth most populous country in Africa after Nigeria, Egypt, and Ethiopia. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is also home to the Congo River, which is the most powerful river in Africa and is the second largest river in the world by volume. The Congo River flows through the Congolese rainforests, which are home to many rare and endangered species, and then flows east into the Atlantic Ocean. These are all factors that make the Democratic Republic of the Congo essential to the Great Rift Valley and the great lakes region of Africa.The Belgian Congo gained its independence from Belgium in 1960 and was known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In 1971 the name was changed to Zaire, but the original name of the Democratic Republic of the Congo was restored. When Joseph Kabila was elected the President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo he became the first democratically elected Congolese leader in over forty years. Prior to Kabila’s election had been ruled by dictators most recently Kabila himself. Joseph Kabila became dictator after his father, Laurent Desire Kabila, was assassinated in 2001. Despite many rumors that Kabila rigged the election, the emergence of a structured, democratic government offers hope to many Congolese citizens and to the international community.
Since the Congolese Civil War has result in the deaths of 3.9 million men, women, and children since the conflict erupted in 1998. Richard Brennan, the primary author of a study about the Congolese Civil War that was conducted by International Rescue Committee and published in the Lancet, cited the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as, “the deadliest crisis anywhere in the world over the past 60 years.” He also makes mention of the ignorance exhibited by the global community in regard to the scale and impact of the Congolese Civil War. The most prominent issue is domestic terrorists and rebels who are terrorizing the northeast and east regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is one of the most problematic countries in Africa. The problems that face the Democratic Republic of the Congo are numerous and varied. One of the most prevalent issues are disputes between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda over oil rights in Lake Albert and ownership of Rukwanzi Island, which is a small island in the southern region of Lake Albert. Drinking water is another important issue for the Democratic Republic of the Congo to deal with.
The armed conflict between Congolese and Ugandan troops over Lake Albert’s oil ended a four-year peace between the two countries, which followed the Congo Wars between Ugandan and Congolese forces which lasted from 1997 to 2003. In 1997, Uganda backed Rwandan forces that helped Congolese rebels to overthrow Mobutu Sese Seko, the military dictator of Zaire (now Congo), but Uganda later opposed his successor Laurent Desire Kabila as well. After rising into power changed the name of the country from Zaire back to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In 2001, Kabila was assassinated and he was succeeded by his son Joseph Kabila who is the current president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. After his death the Ugandan military accused Laurent Kabila of arming rebels and began occupying cities in the east and north-east of Zaire (now Congo). In 2003, Ugandan and Rwandan forces began to pullout and were replaced by 17,500 UN Peacekeepers. After the conflict the International Court of Justice decided that Uganda must compensate the Democratic Republic of the Congo due to atrocities committed against Congolese civilians, which included rape, torture, and murder; another reason for the decision was the looting of Congolese resources by Ugandan forces.
Civil War
The civil war that now ravages the Democratic Republic of the Congo began in 1998 and is the most troublesome issue that is widely overlooked internationally and specifically the western world. The American People were outraged by the United States inaction during the genocide in Rwanda, particularly after the release of the film Hotel Rwanda. The civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo has resulted in the death of 3.9 million people both from fighting and diseases caused by the conflict (according to a study conducted by the International Rescue Committee and published in the Lancet, a British medical journal). The 3.9 million deaths that have occurred during the civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are nearly four times more than resulted from the genocide in Rwanda it is also makes the Congolese Civil War the most deadly conflict since World War II and the Holocaust. The Congolese Civil War has resulted in the deaths of more people than the conflict in Iraq, the conflict in Afghanistan, and the Genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan combined. This conflict is also one of the most disturbing as well with rebel militias raping women and spreading HIV/AIDS as a weapon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is being stripped of its natural resources much as it was when it was ruled by Belgium, and most disturbingly, one rebel faction has been accused cannibalism stemming from reports that some rebels had murdered innocent Pygmies, who have no part in the conflict, and then ate them. The United States government now shows similar inaction in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, yet the uproar from the American public is seemingly nonexistent in comparison to the uproar that resulted from the United States’ inaction during the genocide in Rwanda. One factor which may contribute to the American public’s unawareness of this conflict is that the US is currently at war and most of the outcry for African struggles is about the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan. Between early 2007 and April 2008 alone 550,000 people have fled from their villages in the eastern Congolese provinces of Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu.[i] Many who flee from their villages become malnourished and become more susceptible to many diseases which can kill them.
Although the Congolese Civil War officially ended the conflict continues and it is now concentrated primarily in the mountainous eastern provinces of Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There are an estimated 20,000 rebels in the east belonging to various rebel factions. These groups are responsible devastating entire villages as well as raping and murdering innocent civilians. The 17,000 UN peacekeeping troops in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the largest UN peacekeeping force in the UN’s history and is known by the acronym MONUC. Of the 17,000 UN peacekeepers nearly ninety percent are stationed in the near-anarchical eastern provinces of Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu. The east has been a lawless region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo gained independence from Belgium in 1960. Since 1960, the east has lacked a structured government and has been primarily ruled by warlords and militia leaders. Among the rebel factions in the east are Hutu rebels, the ethnic extremists who were responsible for the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. Most Hutu rebels are members of the FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda), who fled from Rwanda after the genocide ended in July 1994. President Kabila and the Congolese government have struggled to suppress these rebel militias in the eastern provinces, despite a strong military presence as well as the thousands of UN peacekeepers stationed in the east.
Another notable rebel faction was led by Jean-Pierre Bemba, a Congolese senator who lost to Joseph Kabila in the 2006 presidential election. Bemba went into exile in Portugal after his rebel backers were defeated by Congolese troops in 2007. In May 2008, Senator Bemba was arrested in Belgium and is now being charged for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.
Congolese rebel factions are funded in various ways mostly through the smuggling of natural resources, which robs the government of profit. When Rwandan troops were in the Democratic Republic of the Congo they looted many Congolese resources and then funded and backed Congolese rebel militias. But, even after Rwandan troops withdrew smuggling continued. In 2004, seventeen tons of ivory, which came from five-hundred to a thousand illegally poached elephants, were smuggled out of the Congolese province of Ituri alone.[ii] There have also been surprising reports that some UN peacekeepers are supplying Hutu rebels, whom they are supposed to be fighting, with ammunition in exchange for illegally poached ivory.[iii] In another report, Indian and Pakistani UN peacekeepers were accused by the BBC of exchanging their weapons with rebels from the FNI militia, a rebel militia operating in Ituri, in exchange for gold. Another concern in the Congolese forests of Ituri is the okapis. Okapis are a rare species of forest giraffes that are only found in the Ituri province, but during the war they were poached and their pelts were smuggled into neighboring Uganda where they were sold illegally to fund rebel militias in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Despite the ecological problems of war, peace could cause even more. If there was peace in the eastern provinces, international timber companies might be attracted to Congolese rainforests including those in Ituri. Industrial logging in the forests would devastate the now fragile ecosystems in the Congolese rainforests. The obvious threat is deforestation which would reduce the habitat of many endangered species including the okapis and several species of elephants. Logging is still occurring on a far smaller scale as rebels are smuggling timber in ways similar to coltan and other Congolese natural resources.
In the Ituri jungle a semi-nomadic people, the Pygmies, who still live and hunt in ways long forgotten in the western world, have been caught in the crossfire of this deadly conflict in the Ituri province. Pygmies are believed to have been the first people to settle in the area now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Pygmies will go to villages and work in the fields in exchange for food and metal tools, but many farmers take advantage of the Pygmies. There have been disturbing accounts of members of a Congolese rebel faction, MLC (Movement for the Liberation of Congo), murdering and eating Pygmies in Ituri.
Unfortunately, Congolese civilians have frequently been victims of the Congolese Civil War often times women and children. Both Congolese rebels and the Congolese army have used rape as a barbaric weapon of war against innocent civilians during the civil war. Soldiers and rebels will often rape women in public places and force the victim’s family watch. Even worse is that some rebels will force men at gunpoint to rape their own mothers, sisters, and even daughters. Furthermore the UN Fund for Women and various other human rights organizations have estimated that hundreds of thousands of Congolese women and girls have been raped; however an exact figure is unattainable since the vast majority of rapes are not reported because social stigma brought on the victims. Roughly 4,500 cases of sexual violence were reported in the Congolese province of South Kivu in only the first six month of 2007. In addition, to that staggering figure the UN estimates that for everyone instance that is reports ten or twenty will go unreported because of the harsh social stigma brought upon the victims. Even more disturbing are some of the accounts of the vicious attacks. Some victims are as young as eighteen months and are raped in front of their parents and other victims are as old as seventy-five years old. In other accounts the assailants rubbed salt in the victims eyes until she was blind so as to ensure that she could not identify her attackers. Additionally, more than a quarter of Congolese rape victims contract HIV/AIDS. These women are then viewed as “contaminated” and they are shunned by their village and abandoned by their husbands. Also, many refugees feel when they reach a UN refugee camp that they are safe, but unfortunately women are raped in these camps everyday because of this false sense of security.
The effects of rape are not only felt emotionally and physically by the victim, but they are also felt by the village and local economy. Women would usually tend to the fields and harvest the crops, but now more and more women are staying inside. They fear that they could be abducted from their fields and raped. This has caused a rapid decline in agricultural production which has crippled many localized economies and also has caused many to go hungry. These violent rapes have also destroyed the trust many Congolese women once had since many of these assaults were committed by neighbors, taxi drivers, and even teachers.
[i] Economist atrocities beyond words
[ii] National Geographic a hole in the forest sep. 2005
[iii] economist
Images from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo#Civil_Wars
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