“The objective of the attack is to let the population cultivate freely within the park. According to them, Mount Tshiabirimu is not a park.
“According to them, the population around Mount Tshiabirimu suffers from malnutrition, and these fields would help improve this situation.
“As a challenge, as long as the population (people) are not able to cultivate inside the park, then the guards of the park will never be in peace,” the report concludes.
Along with this writer, African journalist and human rights investigator, keith harmon snow, writes about media manipulation in his series KONG: “The natives on Skull Island (in the movie, King Kong) are zombies, rolling their eyes and shaking their bodies in the standard representation of voodoo and spirit possession. They are the Mai Mai warriors of the Congo, the Mau Mau of Kenya, or the Hutu Interahamwe militias of Rwanda.
“Portrayed as savages in the film King Kong, they personify the kinds of images purveyed by western media in their misrepresentative portraits of war in the Congo—the very Heart of Darkness. But the images beamed to us out of Africa by Hollywood and the international media both manipulate reality and manipulate of our consciousness, because they are taken out of context. They are no longer the truth.
“Kill a gorilla, though, and the world-wide press goes haywire with unvetted stories of the Mai Mai and other “rebel troops” hatching a plan to murder every last remaining gorilla in Northern Kivu. The savage villagers in King Kong would be no matches for the specter of tribal warriors drummed up by the mainstream press.” (See www.allthingspass.com)
Calling Al Sharpton
Why are mainstream media so loathe to demystify the myths of African savages? Don Imus was crucified for racist comments that pale compared to what conservation organizations are saying about villagers who are fighting starvation. Allow them to plant some maize in the Virungas, for gods’s sake.
Unless someone steps up to the plate for these people the misinformation will continue, especially since the media agenda seems to be providing a means for raising funds for charities which are the source of much of the media's mis-information.
“And in this age of shrinking budgets at many media organizations and tabloid (yellow) journalism, why bit the hand that feeds you? If you do, you won't get the story, the readers/viewers or sell advertisements to support your media outlet... and the people who sit on the boards of these organizations are the same ones who pay for the ads and/or sit on your board of directors.
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