Now, the white western world wants to tell these poor black women not to have so many children. When will it stop? I would invite Judd to accompany me to the IDP camps in Kivu and meet the midwives who risk all to save babies and offer mothers nourishment in order to swell shriveled breasts.
In a separate arena, conservation groups, in some cases, are using community health initiatives and birth control as a smokescreen for land grabs and fundraising. In 2007 I visited an area in the Graueri Landscape of eastern Congo as part of an investigation into NGO abuses. American mainstream press organizations, celebrities, and television shows tout wildlife conservation and community health in this region as progress. What we found was something else. Congolese doctors and nurses in these conservation arenas explained that NGO's are paying their salaries and at the same time requiring that health professionals convince the local women--the poorest woman in the world--that they should not be having babies, because having babies is "dangerous to their health." Resist chemical sterilization and you cannot use the clinic.
But the women know that three out of five babies will die, and they resist the "required" shots of Depo-Provera which line the shelves of these remote "clinics." How do conservation organizations conserve primates in the wild? They stop hungry people from trying to keep their children alive or even having children. Meanwhile the diamonds, gold, coltan, uranium and niobium flow out of these areas and into the profits of the mining cartels in America, England, Russia and China.
Based on projections made by the United States Department of Agriculture and the Census Bureau, the American population is projected to increase to 392 million by 2050 -- more than a 50 percent increase from the 1990 population size.
Amazing. We look to be worse off than Africa, but no one is shoving Depo-Provera down our collective throats like the conservation and family planning organizations are doing in Africa. I hate to source myself, but no sense reinventing the blog here.
Joint operations between Congo and Rwanda since January 2009, have exacted a terrible toll on the civilian population and human rights groups have accused the United Nations of complicity. Most of the estimated 1200 deaths per day in eastern Congo are due to the ravages of war and preventable disease.
I have yet to see a major op-ed on United State's Special Envoy Howard Wolpe's call for the arrest of Bosco Ntaganda in conjunction with the failed operation Kimia II. This is something celebrities could really sink their teeth into if they would do some research on their own and not regurgitate the agenda's of NGO's. Congo unfortunately is the cause "du jour" on the cocktail circuit now that Sudan has exhausted its turn in the news cycle.
Former rebel general Jean Bosco Ntaganda, also known as "the Terminator", is a deputy commander of an anti-rebel offensive (the regular Congolese army, FARDC) that is being supported by the U.N. mission in Congo, MONUC. But the UN keeps denying it is supplying Ntaganda, despite repeated proof offered by human rights organizations.
Speaking like the diplomat he is, Wolpe offered a weak condemnation, but at least it was something coming from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's turf.
We just feel that anybody who has committed war crimes should not participate in military operations of this sort at the moment and he needs to be held accountable. We're trying now to work with (MONUC) and others to manage that situation in a way that will allow continued pressure on the FDLR but hopefully minimize the risk to civilians.
I addition, there is an un-reported and under-investigated story
that the International Crimes Tribunal in the Hague is about to indict
the former governor of North Kivu, Eugene Serufuli
,
for collusion with Ntaganda, who is already wanted by the Hague for war
crimes in Ituri-Bunia, as Wolpe noted. Sources tell us it is assumed
that General James Kabarebe of Rwanda financed both men and their militias.
Given the real stories coming out of Congo, it is a terrible thing to see USA Today giving op-ed space to "family planning" as a solution to the tragedy known as Congo. Judd termed the death of 8 million children worldwide "genocide," a bastardization of the term.
Judd should take some time and visit with the wise woman midwives who risk all for new life. The solution to the suffering of children is not the removal of children from the equation. I am not a religious person but the phrase, "suffer the children to come unto me for theirs is the kingdom of heaven," has some meaning here.
Ashley Judd is recipient of USA TODAY's Hollywood Hero Award and is also on the board of director's of Population Services International.
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