Hundreds of thousands raped in Congo wars

[Sapphire Blue]

Hundreds of thousands raped in Congo wars

· Scale of attacks emerges as fighting decreases
· Rights groups say militias see it as weapon of war

Chris McGreal in Goma
Tuesday November 14, 2006
The Guardian

Hundreds of thousands of women and girls have been raped over the past decade by soldiers, rebels and ethnic militias in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The scale of the assaults has become increasingly evident over recent months as growing numbers of women have emerged for treatment with the reduction in fighting ahead of presidential elections, and because medical workers have been able to reach areas in the east of the country long cut off by conflict.

The survivors have given accounts of villages subjected to repeated assaults in which many women and girls were serially raped and men killed.

Although there are no comprehensive statistics, in one province alone, South Kivu, about 42,000 women were treated in health clinics for serious sexual assaults last year, according to statistics collected by the human rights group, Global Rights.

(snip)

The woman identified the second group of armed men as members of the interahamwe, the extremist Hutu militia that fled into Congo 12 years ago after leading the genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda. The interahamwe used rape as a tool of genocide, telling women that they would bear Hutu children and that would be the end of the Tutsis. Thousands still hide out in the forests of eastern Congo.

Continued @ http://www.guardian.co.uk/congo/story/0,,1947147,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=1

[helderheid]

1. Jesus Christ.

There are no words.

[Virginia Dare]

2. Very disturbing....n/t

[wholetruth00]

3. It is just so sickening that the world seems not to care about this. I wonder

what reaction would be if this were happening to white women and girls living in S. Africa or Australia or other places in Africa where white women are in significant numbers? I remember that the western world didn't care when this was happening in S. and central America either.

[BushOut06]

4. If there were oil in the Congo, we'd already be there

Bush didn't lift a finger to help New Orleans, you think he gives a shit about what happens in the Congo?

[seemslikeadream]

6. oh something just as precious as oil!

Coltan and Gold and the bushies ARE there

4 MILLION LIVES HAVE BEEN LOST SINCE 1998 IN CONGO


War is Golden for the Bush Administration

After George Bush Senior left the White House, he became an advisor and lobbyist for a Canadian gold-mining company, Barrick Gold. Hey, a guy’s got to work. But there were a couple of questions about Barrick, to say the least. For example, was Barrick’s Congo gold mine funding both sides of a civil war and perpetuating that bloody conflict? Only one Congressperson demanded hearings on the matter.

You’ve guessed: Cynthia McKinney.

That was covered in the . . . well, it wasn’t covered at all in the U.S. press.

McKinney contacted me at the BBC. She asked if I’d heard of Barrick. Indeed, I had. Top human rights investigators had evidence that a mine that Barrick bought in 1999 had, in clearing their Tanzanian properties three years earlier, bulldozed mine shafts . . . burying about 50 miners alive.

MORE.........


Congo War Is World's Top 'Forgotten' Crisis
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1299318

[meti57b]

10. There *is* oil in this area but from what I read, it works in favor of those in power and not .....

in favor of these horribly oppressed people.

[Sapphire Blue]

8. Elie Wiesel: "The Perils of Indifference"

Elie Wiesel: "The Perils of Indifference"

(excerpt)

Rooted in our tradition, some of us felt that to be abandoned by humanity then was not the ultimate. We felt that to be abandoned by God was worse than to be punished by Him. Better an unjust God than an indifferent one. For us to be ignored by God was a harsher punishment than to be a victim of His anger. Man can live far from God -- not outside God. God is wherever we are. Even in suffering? Even in suffering.

In a way, to be indifferent to that suffering is what makes the human being inhuman. Indifference, after all, is more dangerous than anger and hatred. Anger can at times be creative. One writes a great poem, a great symphony. One does something special for the sake of humanity because one is angry at the injustice that one witnesses. But indifference is never creative. Even hatred at times may elicit a response. You fight it. You denounce it. You disarm it.

Indifference elicits no response. Indifference is not a response. Indifference is not a beginning; it is an end. And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor -- never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten. The political prisoner in his cell, the hungry children, the homeless refugees -- not to respond to their plight, not to relieve their solitude by offering them a spark of hope is to exile them from human memory. And in denying their humanity, we betray our own.

Indifference, then, is not only a sin, it is a punishment.

(snip)

In the place that I come from, society was composed of three simple categories: the killers, the victims, and the bystanders. During the darkest of times, inside the ghettoes and death camps -- and I'm glad that Mrs. Clinton mentioned that we are now commemorating that event, that period, that we are now in the Days of Remembrance -- but then, we felt abandoned, forgotten. All of us did.


The complete speech (text & audio) is available @ http://americanrhetoric.com/speeches/ewieselperilsofindifference.html

[malaise]

11. The leaders of this planet care about nothing

but power and stealing resources. Dig deep and find out who is benefitting from all these wars in Africa.

[durrrty libby]

5. Proof positive there is no God n/t

[meti57b]

7. Everyone should be more aware of this and demand action ....

from our government. We pay a bundle of $$$$$ to the U.N. and what are they doing about it.

Our congregation contributes money for aid and assistance, but that doesn't help this kind of atrocity.

[Captain Hilts]

9. This has been going on for years and no one cares. nt

[nickinSTL]

12. hardly new...or surprising...

but, the western world's leaders don't give a shit.

[raccoon]

13. Remember Rwanda?

"The Rwandan Genocide (French: Génocide au Rwanda) was the massacre of an estimated 800,000 to 1,071,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda, mostly carried out by two extremist Hutu militia groups, the Interahamwe and the Impuzamugambi, during a period of about 100 days from April 6th through mid-July 1994.

The Rwandan Genocide stands out as significant, not only because of the sheer number of people murdered in such a short period of time, but also because of how inadequately the United Nations (particularly, its Western members such as the United States, France and Britain) responded. Despite intelligence provided before the killing began, and international news media coverage reflecting the true scale of violence as the genocide unfolded, most first-world countries including France, Belgium, the United States declined to intervene or speak out against the planned massacres. Canada continued to lead the United Nations Peace Keeping force in Rwandan territory."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide

[Anarcho-Socialist]

14. Kicking and recommending

This tragedy needs to be heard.

[Jcrowley]

15. The legacy of colonialism

and the contiuing policy of resource extraction and globalization.

Google Coltan and the Congo if you want to find out more. Coltan is one of the if not the most prized minerals in the world. 80% of the known reserves are in the Congo.

In Bukavu, a 29-year-old human rights campaigner called Bertrand Bisimwa summarised his country’s situation for me with cruel concision. “Since the nineteenth century, when the world looks at Congo it sees a pile of riches with some black people inconveniently sitting on top of them. They eradicate the Congolese people so they can possess the mines and resources. They destroy us because we are an inconvenience.” As he speaks, I picture the raped women with bullets burying through their intestines and try to weigh them against the piles of blood-soaked electronic goods sitting beneath my Christmas tree with their little chunks of Congolese metal whirring inside. Bertrand smiles and says, “Tell me – who are the savages? Us, or you?”

I sit on a man's back choking him and making him carry me. And yet assure myself and others, that I am very sorry for him and wish to lighten his burden by all possible means. Except, by getting off his back.

- Leo Tolstoy

[seemslikeadream]

17. C-O-L-T-A-N

SEE POST # 6

[Sweet Freedom]

16. I think I saw a TV program about this

I want to say that Anderson Cooper highlighted this during his interview with Angelina Jolie. If I remember correctly, there is one doctor who specializes in the vaginal reconstructive surgery the women undergo (after being shot). He said he sees the same patients over and over. The women were interviewed as well, and it was heartbreaking. Not only because of the trauma they have endured, but because they are having children as a result of these rapes and are experienceing terrible emotional conflict between the children they should love, but instead resent as a reminder of their torture.

[Solly Mack]

18. "Rape as a Tactic of War"

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Solly%20Mack/41

[Az_lefty]

19. Good Lord. This is overwhelming...

:cry: