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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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 Posted: Wed May 31, 2006 5:06 pm Post subject: Africa's "First World War": 4 Million Dead... |
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LUBUMBASHI, Democratic Republic of Congo (CNN) -- Confronted with atrocious accounts of rape committed by members of the Congo military, Congolese President Joseph Kabila at first was silent -- then found his voice, saying "It's shocking."
"These kinds of acts are simply unforgivable."
The father of a young girl, Kabila was commenting after watching an exclusive CNN report from last week in which women, children and a doctor described an array of sex crimes by the Congolese military -- some of whom used knives to rape their victims.
Kabila, a former military man, appeared shaken after the report. He watched it and watched it again, shifting uncomfortably in his seat each time he heard a victim's horrific story, shaking his head and narrowing his eyes.
Locals say soldiers from one ethnic group are systematically raping and mutilating women from another group, with the intention, they say of destroying their child-bearing capabilities.
Kabila was quick to acknowledge that more than 300 former soldiers have been convicted and jailed for sexual crimes, but admitted that is not enough.
"We clearly need to do more for our citizens," he said.
"But just imagine for a moment a country as large as all of Western Europe with few roads and little infrastructure. It's a difficult terrain to police and Congo doesn't have an effective policing system. But after the election, all this will change. If elected, I will make this one of my first priorities."
Kabila is the transitional president, appointed to the job after the assassination of his father in January 2001. He hopes to be the first democratically elected leader since Congo gained independence in 1960.
A U.N. report earlier this month found that physical violence against civilians by members of the security forces is "reported wherever army and police are deployed."
The report went on to say that rapes and other sexual violence against women and girls are occurring throughout the country, with the "main perpetrators being army and police officers."
How can such crimes be happening with such impunity under his presidency?
"It's shameful that soldiers anywhere are allowed to do such things," he said. "That's why I want to be president. I want to change this. I want to make security one of my first priorities so that these and other acts come to an end once and for all."
Five years ago, Kabila was catapulted to power after his father, then-President Laurent Desire Kabila, was assassinated in an attempted coup. Joseph Kabila was then 29 years old and the army chief of staff, having spent half his life in the military.
He saw a peace deal signed more than three years ago attempt to halt a bloody war that began in 1998 and drew in no less than six other African countries -- Uganda, Rwanda, Congo, Angola, Zimbabwe and Zambia -- in what Africa analysts dubbed the continent's First World War.
That conflict killed an estimated 3.9 million people, and despite the accord, fighting and lawlessness abounds... |
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/africa/05/31/congo.rape/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/africa/05/28/coverstory.tm/index.html |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 4:12 pm Post subject: |
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Congo doctor heartened by Americans' response[...]
Thank you all for the tremendous outpouring of emotion, anger, disgust and concern over the unspeakable crimes against women being committed in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Believe me, it makes my job all the more rewarding when these stories get such a huge response.
I've been back in touch with Dr. Denis Mukwege Mukengere, the lone physician at Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, the only center for victims of sexual violence in eastern Congo. He tells me he's been getting hundreds of calls from concerned Americans since our story went out on CNN and CNN.com.
"The response has been amazing," he says. "Americans have opened their hearts and are prepared to open their wallets as well. I'm humbled by their generosity. Whoever once said miracles do come true was right in every sense. God may have closed a door on the women of Congo, but he's opened a window and the sun is shining through."
I'm humbled by the strength of this man, and I'm glad he has a renewed sense of energy. He confirms the number of new patients continues to go up. "Just [Tuesday] we had 15 women arrive, all of them raped and mutilated less than 24 hours before."
I also heard from Marie Walterzon of the Swedish Pentecostal Mission, one of the few NGOs providing some much-needed assistance at Panzi Hospital. "God bless America," she told me.
I seek answers for these barbaric and medieval crimes from Congolese President Joseph Kabila, who rose to power almost by default when his father, Laurent Desire Kabila, was assassinated in an attempted coup in 2001. He is filling the position on a transitional basis.
I want him to see the story we did last week on the victims in Bukavu on the women who were raped and mutilated by soldiers. I hand him headphones and he watches the piece in silence. Occasionally his large, piercing eyes narrow into tiny slits. His jaws tighten when he hears the atrocities his former colleagues are accused of committing.
Kabila asks me to play the piece again. Does he really want to see the piece again? He seems interested, angry, disappointed at the crimes his former colleagues are accused of committing. He watches again, lips pursed, his head shaking every now and then.
He removes the headphones and pauses -- pin-drop silence.
"It's shocking," he finally says. "These kinds of acts are simply unforgivable. I'm not saying it's anything new. It's just shocking when you hear their terrible stories. These are innocent victims being terrorized by soldiers. This is not right. This has got to change."
I'm determined to get more answers for my story. "Mr. President, you have a six-year-old daughter, a twin sister, a mother. What if this happened to them? What would you do?"
He stares at me for an eternity then says, "You definitely have my answer right there, you definitely have my answer."
I press on.
"Isn't it shameful that men in uniform in your country are allowed to perpetrate such atrocities with such impunity?" I ask.
"It's shameful that soldiers anywhere are allowed to do such things," he says. "That's why I want to be president [on a permanent basis]. I want to change this. I want to make security one of my first priorities so that these and other acts come to an end once and for all."
Posted By Jeff Koinange, CNN Africa Correspondent: 5:41 PM ET |
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/anderson.cooper.360/blog/
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/anderson.cooper.360/blog/2006/05/congo-rape-victims-how-to-help.html |
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Nowhere Man
Joined: 08 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2006 2:28 am Post subject: ... |
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And what do you propose we do about this, Goph?
You described Darfur in terms of Blackhawk Down's waiting to happen, right? |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2006 2:52 am Post subject: |
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There is so much to discuss about the Congo. I won't get into it. Its history is basically a civil war over its natural resources. Once copper, now Coltan.
But lets not blame the computer geeks out there for this continuing slaughter..........our greed is the same as anywhere else.
I only pause in all this and ask , FROM WHERE DO ALL THE GUNS , BOMBS, TANKS, TRUCKS, ORDINANCES, PLANES, KNIVES, MISSLES, MINES, GRENADES, RIFLES, BOMBS, BOBBY TRAPS, PROTECTIVE GEAR, WIRE, DETONATORS, HELICOPTERS, STUN GUNS, BULLETS...............
FROM WHERE DO THEY COME? Do they fall from the sky????????
Of course not, they are made nextdoor, they run our economies. No cash???? No problem, just give me some of that Coltan......
There is one problem that I see to all the analysis of world affairs, crisis and war. It is that seldom do we talk about who provides others with the ability for wholesale slaughter.............?????? These people don't have armnament factories in their countries --they don't . So, who gives them the means to kill, to rape, to burn and torture.....????? Who gives them the ease of power???? We.....on this I can agree.
DD
I return to Kurtz and his own up the Congo without a paddle, "the Horror, the Horror!" |
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Ilsanman
Joined: 15 Aug 2003
Location: Bucheon, Korea
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| Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2006 3:26 am Post subject: yes |
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Wow, this is some kind of atrocity? Sounds like a normal day in Africa.
Myself, if monkeys want to kill each other, I would sell them the weapon. As long as I know it won't be used on me. |
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Nowhere Man
Joined: 08 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2006 3:39 am Post subject: ... |
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| That's just about the crassest, most pathetic, repugnant thing I've ever read on the CE forum. |
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Ilsanman
Joined: 15 Aug 2003
Location: Bucheon, Korea
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| Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2006 5:10 am Post subject: yes |
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| Instead of attacking me, why not try to prove me wrong? That's what an educated man would do. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2006 10:53 am Post subject: |
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| Nowhere Man wrote: |
And what do you propose we do about this, Goph?
You described Darfur in terms of Blackhawk Down's waiting to happen, right? |
I am not sure what the options are.
And it seems to be raging rather badly on the ground there. It is a pretty sickening event, however, and I would like to hope that there are some options to do something to alleviate this. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2006 10:56 am Post subject: |
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Instead of attacking me, why not try to prove me wrong? That's what an educated man would do.
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Okay. I think it's pretty much a scientific fact that the people involved in these wars are not monkeys. Your move. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2006 11:02 am Post subject: |
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Ilsanman wrote:
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Wow, this is some kind of atrocity? Sounds like a normal day in Africa.
Myself, if monkeys want to kill each other, I would sell them the weapon. |
Anyone still doubt the existence of "Waygook adjosshis"? |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2006 4:46 pm Post subject: Re: yes |
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| Ilsanman wrote: |
| Instead of attacking me, why not try to prove me wrong? That's what an educated man would do. |
read King Leopold's Ghost.
read In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu's Congo by Michaela Wrong.
edit: I'll add Amazon.com's little blurb and summary:
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Amazon.com's Best of 2001
During Mobutu Sese Seko's 30 years as president of Zaire (now the Congo), he managed to plunder his nation's economy and live a life of excess unparalleled in modern history. A foreign correspondent in Zaire for six years, Michela Wrong has plenty of titillating stories to tell about Mobutu's excesses, such as the Versailles-like palace he built in the jungle, or his insistence that he needed $10 million a month to live on. However, these are not the stories that most interest Wrong. Her aim is to understand all of the reasons behind the economic disintegration of the most mineral-rich country on the African continent; in so doing, she turns over the mammoth rock that was Mobutu and finds a seething underworld of parasites with names like the CIA, the World Bank and the IMF, the French and Belgian governments, mercenaries, and a host of fat cats who benefited from Mobutu's largesse and even exceeded his rapaciousness.
Wrong turns first to Belgian's King Leopold II, who instituted a brutal colonial regime in the Congo in order to extract the natural and mineral wealth for his personal gain. Mobutu, with the aid of a U.S. government determined to sabotage Soviet expansion, stepped easily into Leopold's footsteps, continuing a culture built on government-sanctioned sleaze and theft. Under the circumstances, it's hard not to feel some sympathy for the people who survived in the only ways they could--teachers trading passing grades for groceries, hospitals refusing to let patients leave until they paid up, cassava patches cultivated next to the frighteningly unsafe nuclear reactor. What is less comprehensible--and rightly due for an airing--are Wrong's revelations about foreign interventions. Why, for example, did the World Bank and IMF give Mobutu $9.3 billion in aid, knowing full well that he was pocketing most of it? |
Link to book on Amazon
The racist ass pops up again.
Last edited by bucheon bum on Fri Jun 02, 2006 4:55 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2006 4:47 pm Post subject: |
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[deleted]
Last edited by Gopher on Sun Jun 11, 2006 1:00 am; edited 2 times in total |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2006 4:47 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| Nowhere Man wrote: |
And what do you propose we do about this, Goph?
You described Darfur in terms of Blackhawk Down's waiting to happen, right? |
I am not sure what the options are.
And it seems to be raging rather badly on the ground there. It is a pretty sickening event, however, and I would like to hope that there are some options to do something to alleviate this. |
Darfur is a cake walk compared to the Congo.
Darfur=two sides. Congo, too many to count. |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2006 4:48 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
In the case that Ilsanman was not trolling but actually voicing his opinion on the matter, I wholly agree with Nowhere Man and On the other hand here.
I just have a hard time believing that this guy is for real... |
he is. That sad sack of *beep* is the only one to ever threaten me on an internet forum, then accused ME of being a wimp hiding behind a keyboard.  |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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