Iraq V The Congo

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Purple

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At the risk of sounding like Bono:
We are all familiar with the sanctions that were in place on Iraq for years between the first Gulf war and the current one. We all remember the constant reporting of the children dying as a result of the sanctions, or the refusal of Saddam to feed his people (depending on who’s view you took). At the height of the sanctions the excess mortality rate, that being the rate above the norm for the region, was 0.5 per 1000 per month. That’s very high and warranted the international attention. So why is it that there is no reporting of the excess mortality rate in the Congo at the moment in non-combat areas when it is 1.5 per thousand per month? Why is it that the biggest war since the Second World War got almost no coverage be international media?
The death rate in the Congo is still around 450’000 per year and it gets less airtime than the most inane Z list celebrity.
The war in Iraq is a non-event when compared to what is going on in West Africa and has been caused by western governments from America to Belgium to France and beyond as much as the war in Iraq has.
It’s a pity George Galloway had no mates in the area.
 
I'm with you 100% here. Having spent two years in that part of the world (mostly Rwanda), still having some friends there and knowing what is going on, I am constantly shocked at how little international media coverage, this and other parts of Africa receives.
 
I don't know much about the situation in Africa to be completely honest but I know an argument (may possibly need to use that term lightly) I have often heard repeated in reply to this kind of question is that if there was oil there, we'd be hearing all about it. Is there any oil in Africa, by the way? I have absoutely no idea.
 
There's lots of oil in Africa, but principally in places like Nigeria. However, the http://portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=5ZEPGDIOIJ2BJQFIQMGCFGGAVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/campaigns/congo/conintro.xml (Congo) has extraordinarily valuable mineral deposits (including diamonds) which have been systematically leeched by a variety of factions — who of course sell them on to primarily foreign businesses.

According to [broken link removed] Amnesty International report,
The ambition of [...] combatant forces to exploit eastern DRC's mineral and economic wealth has been the biggest single factor in the continuing violence. The major beneficiaries have been senior members of the Ugandan and Rwandese armed forces, foreign businesses and leaders of armed political groups. Recent troop withdrawals have not affected continuing control of the exploitation by Rwanda and Uganda.
Click to expand...
Grim stuff...:mad:
 
This is a very complex situation that can be traced back to Belgian colonisation in the 19th century (or to 1482 when Diogo Cao, a Portuguese navigator landed there and made contact with the king of the Kongo). The current war is a result of the Rwandan genocide. As the Ugandan backed Tutsi dominated rebel army swept through Rwanda it caused an influx of Hutu civilians, along with the militia that carried out the murders, into the Congo. The Hutu power group that carried out the genocide ran many of the refugee camps. They used these camps as a base to launch further attacks on Tutsis and moderate Hutus across the border. Up to 20’000 people, many of them children, were killed in these attacks. UN inadvertently financed these attacks through its humanitarian aid programmes in the camps.
After numerous threats and one invasion (resulting in a massacre or at least hundreds) in one of the camps the Rwandans invaded again, this time with the Ugandan army. What started out as a war to stop murder quickly descended into a war for control of the Congo’s natural resources (The disc drive head in the reader head of your iPod is probably made from Titanium mined in the Congo). The Congolese rebels who overthrew Mobutu soon fragmented and with backing from Rwanda and Uganda some of them tried to overthrow Laurent Kabila, their new president. Troops from Namibia, Chad, Sudan, Angola and Zimbabwe were sent to support him. More importantly each of these countries backed different tribal groups. The resulting war caused utter chaos with Rwanda and Uganda finding themselves on different sides of the conflict.
Laurent Kabila was shot in 2000 (I think) and his less corrupt and despotic son took over. There is meant to be a South African backed ceasefire in place but it has been less than watertight. With so much money at stake and so many power brokers there is little chance of a clean break from the past. The influence of the USA and the French cannot be ignored either. The future is not bright.
 
dunno , Congo was a kleptocracy under Mobotu for years
 
I would never defend Mobutu. He stole up to $4 billion from his own people, had an abysmal human rights record and his economic policies were like something out of North Korea. The reason a country like Rwanda could overthrow his government (scale wise it’s like Ireland invading Germany) was because he had no popular support and his country was a shambles.
 
but Ronald Reagan said of Mobutu that he was :

"a friend of democracy and freedom"

surely Ronald Reagan could not have lied about democracy and freedom could he ?????
 
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