Congo Massacre

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

From today's Guardian

A total of 4.7 million people have died as a direct result of the Democratic Republic of Congo's civil war in the past four and a half years, according to a report released today by the International Rescue Committee, a leading aid agency.
By the IRC's methodical calculations, Congo's convoluted war - one barely mentioned in the western media - has claimed far more lives than any other conflict since the second world war.

"This is the worst calamity in Africa this century, and one which the world has consistently found reasons to overlook," David Johnson, the director of IRC's operations in eastern Congo, said yesterday.

"Over the past three years our figures have been consistent and clear. Congo's war is the tragedy of modern times."

With a margin for error of 1.6m - a standard proportion is applied to areas too dangerous for researchers to reach - IRC admits its estimate is approximate. Yet few aid workers in eastern Congo doubt that a total death toll of 4.7m is possible.

"With an almost complete lack of medical care, as well as food insecurity and violence over a vast area, this number does not seem exaggerated," said Noel Tsekouras, the UN humanitarian coordinator for eastern Congo.

"Even the fact that we are wondering how many millions have died is mindboggling."

Only about 10% of the war's victims have died violently, according to IRC: the majority succumbed to starvation or disease as a multitude of armed groups sprang up and marauded their way through the villages and fields after Rwanda's invasion in 1998 drew seven other national armies into the conflict on Congolese soil.

For the past three weeks in eastern Congo, from Ugandan-occupied Bunia in the north to Rwandan-controlled Bukavu, via half-a-dozen warlords' fiefdoms in between, the Guardian has followed a trail of devastation. The scenes of destruction- the torched huts and weed-choked fields - are as ubiquitous as the country's green hills.

In recent fighting around Uvira between the Rwandan-backed Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD) and traditional Mayi-Mayi militias local rights groups documented 5,000 cases of rape.

Last week 966 villagers were massacred outside Bunia, in north-eastern Ituri province, according to UN observers, in an inter-ethnic war stirred by Uganda's policy of divide and rule.

Isabelle and Bernita, two emaciated women who have each lost a leg, lie side-by-side in Bunia hospital. Their respective tribes, the Hema and the Lendu, are trying to wipe one another out.

Last year Uganda - in search of a reliable proxy - armed a Hema militia. The militiamen went on to massacre about 10,000 Lendus in revenge for atrocities carried out by the formerly Ugandan-armed Lendu militia. Then they switched loyalties to Uganda's enemy, Rwanda.

Isabelle and Benita lost their legs to mines sent by Rwanda and intended for Ugandan soldiers.

"I was coming home from the fields," whispers Isabelle, a 47-year-old mother of seven. "There was a bomb in the ground."

"Everyone wants peace - even the Lendus - but only God knows if it will ever come," she says, her voice quavering with pain. "Life will be difficult for a cripple."

Peace looks unlikely now. Last month Uganda scattered the Hema militiamen, and reoccupied Bunia and a dozen outlying airstrips. And now the Lendus are taking their revenge: a fact made plain by the massacre of 966 Hemas last week.

Another of their victims, Ruhigwa Likoka, 32, was the only man of his Hema community left on a pale green hill outside Bunia last month.

He and his neighbours had fled a Lendu attack hours before. Now, he was back to bury his four children beside the smoking ashes of his home.

They were too young to run, he explained, pouring earth and ashes on to their bodies.The militiamen had made them round up his eighty cattle, then macheted them when the job was done.

Further south, in Kivu province, there is better news. Since Rwanda substantially withdrew from Congo in October, the killing has tailed off, according to IRC. The reason is that the RCD, Rwanda's main proxy group, promptly lost ground to the Mayi-Mayi, who have generally preyed less on civilians.

Balia Hamabura's family was among the RCD's last targets in Kalonge, a rainforest village 40 miles east of Bukavu. His home had already been looted by Rwandan Hutu rebels, and his two sisters raped.

Then, as the RCD fighters fled the Mayi-Mayi's advance, they stopped to burn his hut and shoot his 65-year-old father in the leg.

"We are poor, but Kalonge is peaceful," he said, heaving sacks of charcoal on to a lorry bound for Bukavu. "When the Rwandans were here, we had to sleep in the forest. But now, thanks be to God, we can sleep in our houses again."

But with Rwanda apparently ready to re-invade Congo, his relief may be premature. Gunfire rattled through the deserted streets of Bukavu, the eastern Congo's capital yesterday, in a battle between rival Rwandan-backed rebel armies, which many analysts fear will be the pretext for Rwanda's return.

After 24 hours of heavy shelling and small-arms fire in the western and north-western suburbs of Bukavu, 16 people were reported dead, including six civilians, and 54 injured.

"Both groups are armed by the same master, Rwanda, so it's hard to see why they're fighting," said Didace Kaningini, the president of a business group in Bukavu. "People are certainly being killed, yet we believe this is a masquerade for Rwanda to intervene."

Rwanda's parliament authorised President Paul Kagame to re-invade Congo two weeks ago. UN peacekeepers have since been trying to confirm reports of incursions by Rwandan troops. Consequently, UN efforts to disarm Hutu militias in eastern Congo - whose presence Rwanda cites as justification for an invasion - have all but ceased.

"If we have to go back to Congo ... we will go back, and there's absolutely no apologies to make for that," Mr Kagame said in a radio broadcast.

With at least 5,000 Rwandan soldiers seconded to the RCD, according to the thinktank the International Crisis Group, Rwanda only ever scaled down its control of eastern Congo.

Another invasion could spell the end of a peace deal signed last week between Congo's government and rebel groups - and the war would rage on.

[Arrian]

Nice to see some people making a profit from Africa's misery though. Wouldn't want to think all those Yanqui tax dollars had gone to waste...

Yep, that's right, everything, everywhere is America's fault.

The current war in Congo, I beleive, stems frm the aftermath of the Rwanda disaster. For all of the US's previous involvement in the area, I do believe what happened in the Congo was an all African production.

Probably.

In any shithole country, if you dig for the root causes of shitholiness, you will probably find outsiders meddling at some point, and thus must conclude that those outsiders are partially responsible for the generate state of shitholeness. In this case, I will take Molly's word that the CIA meddled, and that the US bears some of the blame for the mess that is the Congo. But it seems to me that there have been other, more significant meddlers, both African and non-African (European), and some pretty awful local tyrants that bear - between them - much more of the blame.

Whichever it is, it sucks that millions of people are living & dying in the aforementioned shithole. It would be nice to see some improvement. It would also be nice to know exactly how to go about doing that without becoming another "meddler" and/or just helping out the tyrant of the month.

-Arrian

[C0ckney]

yes, while america was responsible for proping up mobutu. the current problems congo faces are almost entirely the making of africans.

[Maniac]

Belgium should send troops to their former colony to restore order and liberate the people!

[VJ]

while america was responsible for proping up mobutu

Here's a little quiz for you:
How many people there are in America?
(A) 80 000 000
(B) 260 000 000
(C) 340 000 000
(D) > 700 000 000

[GePap]

and the point of that quiz?

Oh, and the US has about 280,000,000 people as of 2000.

[DarthVeda]

There is more oil in The Democratic Republic of the Congo (Zaire) than two Iraqs...

[Pekka]

Tuome, I love your quotes reasons 3 and 5

I knew that war in Congo has big body count as aftermath, but 4.7 million? wtf?!

[chequita guevara]

I think they're playing fast and loss with the numbers. They admit as much lower in the article, where they say that only 10% of the deaths are combat related. The biggest problem is the violence keeps the health workers out, but the violence has been going on at least since the US and Belgium sponsored a secession movement in Katanga province back in 1961. They also ignore that the DRC has been hard hit by AIDS, and there's not much they can do to help with that.

Congo should be one of the richest countries in the world, but the one guy who may have been able to get the country's act together, Patrice Lumumba, was murdered on the orders of the CIA (the CIA station chief had Lumumba's body in the trunk of his car for a day or so while they tried to figure out what to do with it).

I don't doubt that 4.7 million have died, however. Most of Africa's a complete basket case.

[Kontiki]

DarthVeda may be stretching the numbers a bit, but it's true that there are actually sizeable known oil reserves in the Congo and quite a lot more suspected.

As Chegitz pointed out, Congo should be one of the richest counties in the world. It's fairly well known that between the amount of minerals, fertile land, oil, and hydro-electric potential, Congo could have massive trade surpluses and feed and supply electricity to the entire African continent if it were actually put to use.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by GePap


Which is the same most people would say about Iraq if they had not been told "hey, Invade Iraq, payback for 9/11!".

And people wonder why others around the world look at the US and UK funny when they talk about how much they "care about democracy" and ending misery.

Molly Bloom:

The current war in Congo, I beleive, stems frm the aftermath of the Rwanda disaster. For all of the US's previous involvement in the area, I do believe what happened in the Congo was an all African production.

Not quite. Laurent Kabila was part of one of the rebellions against Mobutu way, way back in the 1960s- in Stanleyville/Kisangani. The Simbas ('lions') were passionate Lumumba supporters, and the rebellion was crushed by 600 Belgian paratoopers flown in by a grateful United States!

Kabila fled with his supporters to mountains west of Lake Tanganyika around Kivu. Kabila's guerillas funded themselves by trading gold and ivory, and kidnapping and ransoming three Stanford students and a Dutch friend of theirs for $ 40 000. After Mobutu had used up all his favours, and fled, cancer stricken to die in kleptocrat luxury, Kabila and his Tutsi Banyamulenge allies went through the 'mighty' Zairean army as though it were wet tissue paper.

Kagama, Rwanda's new Tutsi leader, just happens to be backed by the U.S.- and received military training in the U.S. .

Uganda's Yoweri Musuveni also happens to be backed by the U.S.- and he was on the same side as the Rwandans and Kabila.

"Yep, that's right, everything, everywhere is America's fault. "- Arrian

Oh fer crissakes, Arrian grow up! Do you think Zaire was a good investment for the U.S.? I'm simply pointing out the folly of propping up someone like Mobutu- and in terms of support, everyone from Eisenhower to Kennedy to Reagan had a part to play, regardless of party affiliation. This hardly justifies your predictable whine- at what point have I blamed the U.S. for everything?

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/amassembl...us_remarks.htm

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/Angola_KH.html

The U.S. government twice helped Mobutu put down two rebellions that nearly toppled his regime in the 1970s.

Ronald Reagan twice welcomed Mobutu to Washington, and called him:

“a voice of good sense and good will”.

Quite what the good sense and good will referred to were, well, the good sense to accumulate a personal fortune of an estimated 5 billion dollars in Swiss and other European bank accounts, perhaps? The good will shown to the mercenary forces of Jonas Savimbi’s murderous Unita forces allowed to use Zaire as an escape route (it should also be noted that Reagan compared Savimbi with Abraham Lincoln. I see no record of Lincoln ever having personally murdered a political rival, and the rival’s wife).

At the same time that Mobutu was accumulating his stash of U.S. donated tax dollars (your money at work, folks!) ‘his’ country was declining further and further into poverty and chaos- real wages slipped to 10% of their pre-independence level. For 12 years between 1973 and 1985, per capita income fell by 3.9 per cent a year. Under Mobutu and the U.S.’s tutelage, Zaire went from being a net exporter of food to spending 20% of its foreign exchange on food imports. Malnutrition and a virtually non-existent health care service meant one third of Zairean children died before the age of five. A derelict road network meant that peasant farmers (who make up the majority of Africa’s food producers) could not sell any surplus produced as they could not reach potential markets- and so a return to the most basic subsistence level of farming followed.

Under Mobutu, Zaire’s foreign debt reached at one point 7 billion dollars- only 2 billion more than Mobutu’s personal fortune at the time. Then it increased to an estimated 14 billion dollars.

And yet, at the same time, a senior I.M.F. official in Washington resigned from his job in 1987 because of what he said was improper pressure put on the fund by the U.S. government to ease lending conditions for Zaire. The I.M.F. bowed to this pressure, and money from the World Bank and a rescheduling from the Paris Club followed.
Your tax dollars at work, people.

From 1983 to 1987, for instance, the World Bank had already committed 602 million dollars. The Paris Club’s rescheduling granted Zaire six years’ grace on its bilateral debts and extended payment periods totalling up to fifteen years. As a Zairean Finance Ministry official said:

“ No country in Africa had been treated as generously before.”

And with so little to justify it, or show for it.

[C0ckney]

Originally posted by Tuomerehu

Here's a little quiz for you:
How many people there are in America?
(A) 80 000 000
(B) 260 000 000
(C) 340 000 000
(D) > 700 000 000

as GeGap said, what is the point of asking me that?

do you doubt my statement that america proped up mobutu's regime?

[Ramo]

Yep, Mobutu has totally ****ed up Zaire, and we've been in bed with him for decades.

[VJ]

do you doubt my statement that america proped up mobutu's regime?

Oh, and the US has about 280,000,000 people as of 2000.

America = United States





Not.
Just wanted to notify that US doesn't cover even half of the America.

[C0ckney]

well i think everyone well understood which country i was refering to

[Spiffor]

I've just sumbled on this thread.

4.7 million casualties ?
Directly caused by the ambitions of neighbouring countries
How come our countries don't do rats about it ? How come the UN doesn't send troops to prevent fighting from occuring in bigger cities, and to protect humanitarian work ???

This is a flabbergasting catastrophe. We thought the Rwandan genocide was bad. We hardly hear about Congo

[Giancarlo]

My uncle was in Burundi, Uganda and the DRC for some time working for an aid organization. He told me of the suffering. 9 countries involved in fighting the DRC has destroyed infrastructure, and has killed millions.

This is a UN **** up. To put it bluntly.

Yep, Mobutu has totally ****ed up Zaire, and we've been in bed with him for decades.

He was the lesser of the evils in the country. You could of course have Tshombe rule the country... instead of Mobutu. Then things would of really been screwed up in a much smaller amount of time.

[Lord Merciless]

Congo was a former Belgian colony, so naturally the EU should do some interventions there. Remember, Congo has huge diamond and copper mines.

If EU decides not do anything about it, that's fine with me. As I said before, Africa is a far bigger sh1thole than the ME. It's really fortunate for us that nobody there has become too ambitious so far.

[Giancarlo]

It's really fortunate for us that nobody there has become too ambitious so far.

The only thing I am worried about is Qaddafi... who wants a united Africa... of some sort...

[Menlas]

Originally posted by Lord Merciless
If EU decides not do anything about it, that's fine with me. As I said before, Africa is a far bigger sh1thole than the ME. It's really fortunate for us that nobody there has become too ambitious so far.

In fact, i don't really see how it could make things worse than they are now...

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Lord Merciless
If EU decides not do anything about it, that's fine with me. As I said before, Africa is a far bigger sh1thole than the ME. It's really fortunate for us that nobody there has become too ambitious so far.

Some people are getting ambitious, and I think Uganda's leader is one of those. However, the power structure in subsaharian Africa is not nearly centralized and united enough for an African dictator to be any dangerous to the big powers in the next decades. Yet, these dictators can be atrociously dangerous to their populations or their neighbours' populations. The simple willingness to rule an African country is a huge ambition already, and is often paisd in blood.

[Giancarlo]

But what about Qaddafi?

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Originally posted by Spiffor
I've just sumbled on this thread.

4.7 million casualties ?
Directly caused by the ambitions of neighbouring countries
How come our countries don't do rats about it ? How come the UN doesn't send troops to prevent fighting from occuring in bigger cities, and to protect humanitarian work ???

This is a flabbergasting catastrophe. We thought the Rwandan genocide was bad. We hardly hear about Congo

Where is the US of A evil fighting Knight Junior

he must have got stuck somewhere in the desert...

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by Fez
But what about Qaddafi?

Qaddafi belongs to the ME crowd.

The "Africa" I was refering to is the subsaharran one.

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by Menlas


In fact, i don't really see how it could make things worse than they are now...

It can get far worse: massive famine, countless genocides a la Rwanda, brutal tyrants impaling opponents a le Vlad, people cannibalizing each other....

[chequita guevara]

In total, about 3.5 million people have died in the Congo. It's the bloodiest war since WWII.

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
In total, about 3.5 million people have died in the Congo. It's the bloodiest war since WWII.

But we don't see a drop in their population, do we?

[Giancarlo]

Originally posted by Lord Merciless


But we don't see a drop in their population, do we?

Primarily because of a +3% - +4% population growth rate...

[DanS]

Random factoid of sh!tholiness: DROC is only one of three governments on the planet that the CIA lists as outright dictatorships (the others being NK and Libya).

Oddly, DROC has one of the highest literacy rates in Africa.

[Giancarlo]

A high literacy rate in the fact that people can write and read. But the system has been wrecked... I don't see how this is possible.. how can a high literacy rate be attained while the country's infrastructure is in pieces?