3 good lengthy quotes about the tragedy in the Congo.
"Let's be honest. We ignore Congo's atrocities because it's in Africa. For more than a hundred years DRC ie: Congo has endured horror upon horror with barely any outcry. It would not be allowed to continue elsewhere..........the country was the site of the deadliest war since the fall of Hitler, and yet the vast majority of people in the West are not aware of it, nor aware of the ongoing conflict and atrocities to this day.........this is the world's least developed country in terms of life expectancy, education, standard of living and key health indicators; and yet this vast country of nearly 80 million people barely punctures our consciousness. Why?"
"Congo's tragedy: the war the world forgot.......in a country the size of Western Europe, a war has raged and conflict continues to rage that has cost millions of lives and caused suffering to millions of others........rival militias inflict appalling suffering on the civilian population, and what passes for political leadership is powerless to stop it. This is Congo, and the reason for the conflict - control of minerals essential to the electronic gadgetry (like COLTAN for all IT products) on which the wealthy, developed world depends - is what makes our blindness to the horror doubly shaming."
"on a trip to eastern Congo, I chanced on a hillside village and fancied myself for a moment transplanted to a village in plague - stricken Europe in medieval times ; children, scary-eyed and brain damaged by undernourishment, hobbling towards us, old hags of 40, teenage polio victims paddling themselves along on bits of packing case, deformed and toothless faces smiling grotesquely as they begged, young bodies scarred, broken and hideously regrown........these people, and millions like them, are the real victims of near-perpetual warfare. On any average day of the year, 1,450 Congolese die of war's twin side-effects : disease and malnutrition.........."
No where on earth have so many for so long suffered more terribly.........tens of thousands of Congolese are condemned to slave labour in gold, diamond, tin and coltan mines, frequently as gunpoint. Congo's mineral reserves are the largest on the planet, yet 75% of almost 80 million people live on less than a $1 a day......yet near total silence from almost all western media. Why?
"Congo's tragedy: the war the world forgot.......in a country the size of Western Europe, a war has raged and conflict continues to rage that has cost millions of lives and caused suffering to millions of others........rival militias inflict appalling suffering on the civilian population, and what passes for political leadership is powerless to stop it. This is Congo, and the reason for the conflict - control of minerals essential to the electronic gadgetry (like COLTAN for all IT products) on which the wealthy, developed world depends - is what makes our blindness to the horror doubly shaming."
"on a trip to eastern Congo, I chanced on a hillside village and fancied myself for a moment transplanted to a village in plague - stricken Europe in medieval times ; children, scary-eyed and brain damaged by undernourishment, hobbling towards us, old hags of 40, teenage polio victims paddling themselves along on bits of packing case, deformed and toothless faces smiling grotesquely as they begged, young bodies scarred, broken and hideously regrown........these people, and millions like them, are the real victims of near-perpetual warfare. On any average day of the year, 1,450 Congolese die of war's twin side-effects : disease and malnutrition.........."
No where on earth have so many for so long suffered more terribly.........tens of thousands of Congolese are condemned to slave labour in gold, diamond, tin and coltan mines, frequently as gunpoint. Congo's mineral reserves are the largest on the planet, yet 75% of almost 80 million people live on less than a $1 a day......yet near total silence from almost all western media. Why?
Hi Paul, good to see you blogging again. What's your guess to the question of "why?". I guess the "because it's in Africa" reason is a race/ethnicity kind of thing? Do you think there is actually any attempt to keep it quiet?
ReplyDeleteAmazing what one can read regarding the silence on the past and present conflicts, atrocities and suffering in the Congo by simply reading many good articles found by googling : "Congo ignored".
ReplyDeleteThe slaughter and suffering in the Congo in the past 20 years has been as bad or worse than Cambodia in the 1970s or Rwanda in the 1990s.
It is TERRIBLE how there can be political chaos, total lawlessness, an ultra violent scramble to plunder all these mineral resources by rival militias etc and millions going hungry and suffering in every way imaginable....
BUT we in the safe, wealthy western world still get all the key minerals we need from the Congo at a good, cheap price.
Maybe for the past ten years Congo Week, Congo Breaking the Silence, Cell Out Hour on October 21st each year gets almost zero publicity in the West is because it is too hard for us to face that a lot of the COLTAN etc we need for our cell and mobile phones and X boxes etc comes to us via 2 million undernourished Congolese mining Coltan and other minerals with their bare hands at gunpoint.
ReplyDeleteHow many in Germany and Europe and elsewhere were silent after 1933 as Hitler and other Nazis increasingly caused the death and suffering of millions.
But were Hitler and the Nazis eventually crushed for their cruel and barbaric treatment of people or because the expansion of a powerful Germany threatened the peace and prosperity of other nations ?
The 2 million Congolese mining for gold, diamonds and coltan etc include tens of thousands of undernourished children. Children receiving neither education nor proper health care.
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