The continuing horror of a war that is supposed to be over.

Nick 0208 Ldn

By Mike Thomson
BBC News, eastern DR Congo

The brutal war in the Democratic Republic of Congo which left between three to four million dead is supposed to be over, but you would not know it.[/b]

Thousands of people have been pouring into this camp for displaced people north of the regional capital, Goma, in recent weeks and the stories they bring with them are horrific.

A woman who lost her father and brother in an attack on her village by rebel militia told me she saw 100 people killed.

"And that is not even counting the dead bodies they made us throw down the wells."

Another man tells me about similar carnage that happened not far away. This time the attackers were members of the Congolese army itself.

"Rebels ambushed a colonel of the army and after this they said they would attack all the population because they said we were directly helping the rebels against them.

"So, the army began to kill people inside my village, going from street to street to kill people without taking care whether they were rebels or not."

Broken peace promises

The United Nations' World Food Programme says that more than 50,000 people from three villages have been forced to flee their homes over the past month alone.

A spokesman told me that in the past such people would return soon after but not anymore.

Camps like the one I am in, about 30 kilometres from the Ugandan border, are becoming permanent for the first time.

In all, 200,000 people here now need food aid and 1,000 across the east are estimated to be dying of conflict related diseases every single day.

This is supposed to be a country at peace.

In December 2002, a peace agreement signed between DR Congo's President Kabila and various militia leaders brought an official end to the fighting.

Many of the rebel commanders were given lucrative posts in the transitional government and most of their militia men were integrated into the national army.

Part of the problem has been that a combination of low wages for soldiers, only around a dollar a day, plus endemic corruption which often reduces that still further, means they do have enough to live on.

As a result they go back to do what they have done for so long, taking what whey want from civilians at the point of a gun.

Collapse of justice

In 2005 alone, there were more than 40,000 reported rapes or other serious sexual assaults in Congo, most of them committed by either rebel or government soldiers.

Murders, kidnappings and robberies are also rife. Few, however, face justice for their crimes in a country where the criminal justice system has, in many places, virtually collapsed.

Those who are convicted of such offences can usually buy their way out of jail, many others simply offer to pay bereaved families the price of a coffin for the loved one they killed.

The government in Kinshasa still insists that it's winning the battle against marauding militia gangs in the east.

With the help of 17,000 UN peacekeepers, the biggest and most expensive force of it's kind in the world, it claims to have demobilised around 150,000 rebels.

This still leaves an estimated 70,000 armed militia still roaming the bush, some of them children as young as seven.

As many as 10,000 of these are Rwandan Hutu militia known as Interahamwe, who fled here after their part in the 1994 genocide across the border which left up to two million people dead.

Congolese troops are currently involved in a new military effort to drive these viscous fighters from the forests that cover the border area, but they face a daunting task.

The first democratic elections last year in more than four decades brought fresh hope to this trouble country, but for many here in the east, that optimism is already beginning to fade.

Listen to a victim's story. [i]]Warning ~ You may find parts of this interview distressing. :: http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/new...tm?bw=bb&mp=rm



I don't know how many of you will listen to the interview, but it is truly shocking, what happened in general and what that woman suffered.

The way Africa's probelms have been abandoned to diplomats and token peacekpeeing forces at best in many cases, it is....disgraceful. And what have w learnt from Rwanda and the DRC? Are Darfur or Zimbabwe being handled how they should as a resut? Of course now.

Frosty

Something really needs to be done

Can't they send in UN peacekeepers, or can't the US and EU exert diplomatic pressure on the groups involved?

Mihajlovic

They did that already..

"With the help of 17,000 UN peacekeepers, the biggest and most expensive force of it's kind in the world, it claims to have demobilised around 150,000 rebels."

But the problem is those UN peacekeepers cant really do much, they are outnumbered and they also have no influence at the government`s decisions etc. First I thought the UN just wanted to do something, so in sending down the troops they thought it`s going to stabilize the situation. I dont know, looks like Africa in general is a very very complicated issue.

ILBB15

None of the big countries care about these african countries unfortunately, they have more important business, like invading Iraq and things like that.

And the UN is a joke that can´t do anything to stop this.

Mihajlovic

Here is an article presenting the socialists perspective about some of the reasons for the problems in Africa

Africa: The Lost Continent?

Africa has been politically backward and naïve throughout the last century with so many atrocities, anomalies and injustices. Its children thought that, one day, things will be better, but since the era of independence dawned the situation has remained the same or even got worse. Ills, evils and self-destructions of all kinds continue to plague the African continent. Africa has lost its natural, human and material resources to wars and massacres. Coups and counter-coups have continued to play havoc with African society. Should confidence have been reposed in the statements of the likes of Kwameh Nkrumah, Thomas Sankara and Patrice Lumumba, to the effect that Africa's problems will turn to brightness? Is there any optimism for Africa? Will African children live to see this happen?

One may ask why Africa has remained the poorest continent the world has ever produced. The answer is simple.

Firstly, the self-centredness and mass corruption of African leaders plays a pivotal role in the continent's Waterloo. Most African heads only came into power to enrich themselves. The poor and the underprivileged are always the victims of these despots. Statistics have revealed that millions of African farmers go without a piece of farmland when their leaders have uncountable hectares of farmland in and out of the continent; millions are dying of sicknesses and diseases everyday when potential medical facilities would be more than enough; millions are suffering from starvation and malnutrition when there is sufficient food; and millions more are living in absolute poverty when individual leaders are saving millions of dollars in foreign banks for their own interests.

Secondly, the intolerance and lack of respect for one another among Africans, combined to invite trouble in Africa. Africans are killing each other and destroying the continent's resources all because of these leaders' power hunger. It is enough to mention the gun rule and slaughtering of people in Algeria, massacres in Burundi, Angola, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and killing of innocent civilians in Cassamance (southern Senegal) among others. These indicate that African leaders are themselves responsible for Africa's underdevelopment and political mayhem. With this era of political ignorance and naivety occupying Africa, there is more than ever need for a continent, indeed a world, without leaders or political borders.

As we entered the dawn of the new millennium, intellectual sycophants have started howling and trumpeting that it will be a millennium of African peace and development. One renowned intellectual was quoted as saying that "in the next millennium, Europeans will come to Africa as refugees." Is it not during this prelude stage of the millennium that floods occurred in Mozambique, killing hundreds of people? That hunger and starvation entered Ethiopia? That thousands died in Nigeria as a result of the religious wars? That mass religious suicide occurred in Uganda? That the senseless land dispute heated up in Zimbabwe? And the wars in Rwanda, Cassamance and Burundi intensified?

With these madnesses in our midst, only the insane would predict a bright future for Africa. Until socialist politics is introduced in Africa, the gloom of this "Heart of Darkness" shall continue.


http://www.worldsocialism.org/articl..._continent.php

spinoza

Weird

Quite a lot of African problems are due to aforementioned socialist politics - botched land redistribution, for example.

And Nkrumah, Nyerere and to a certain extent Lumumba claimed to be socialists, and were hailed as such during their tenure in power.

Silly article

spinoza

Sorry, not Lumumba, who is power for about 6 months. I meant Jomo Kenyatta.

Mihajlovic

It`s not a silly article, it didnt give a full analysis of every single problem concerning Africa but only mentioned some of them. Are you denying that there is no "self-centredness and mass corruption of African leaders" or "intolerance and lack of respect for one another among Africans"? Whether the solution is a socialist or not it still has some valid points.

spinoza

Look, the article states some problems (which are real), ascribes some of them to "intolerance and lack of respect for one another among Africans" (which quite frankly is bollocks - Africa is no more intolerant as a continent than anywhere else), then absolves socialism of blame, disowning leaders previously hailed as socialist, and claims a harebrained solution of "more socialist politics".

It's silly.

Psmith

Much of Africa's problems today is due to its colonization in the past.

Eto'odinho

The problem with le grande Congo is that it is too stinking rich for its own good.