Eastern Congolese women are not only raped and tortured in the violent scramble for the region's vast natural resources; their suffering is then manipulated to raise funds for the non-profit industrial complex, and to justify ongoing U.S. military engagement.
I often despair of ever seeing the truth come out about the imperial scamble for resources in D.R. Congo and the rest of Africa. Now even Link TV, generally considered to be a "progressive" outlet, is quoting the NY Times's Nicholas Kristof on how much he'd like to see an earthquake, like Haiti's, or a tsunami, in eastern Congo:
"Sometimes I wish eastern Congo could suffer an earthquake or a tsunami, so that it might finally get the attention it needs. The barbaric civil war being waged here is the most lethal conflict since World War II and has claimed at least 30 times as many lives as the Haiti earthquake." - Nicholas Kristof, New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/opinion/31kristof.html
These barbaric African people, according to Kristof's reasoning, just can't stop killing each other, so we Western white folks just have to give them some more of our "attention."
"Sometimes I wish eastern Congo could suffer an earthquake or a tsunami, so that it might finally get the attention it needs. The barbaric civil war being waged here is the most lethal conflict since World War II and has claimed at least 30 times as many lives as the Haiti earthquake." - Nicholas Kristof, New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/opinion/31kristof.html
These barbaric African people, according to Kristof's reasoning, just can't stop killing each other, so we Western white folks just have to give them some more of our "attention."
And heist all their natural resources in the process, as I described in "The holocaust in D.R. Congo; war for the sake of war itself," published in the San Francisco Bay View, National Black Newspaper
Since Kristof and the Pentagon are still waiting for their earthquake, it seems that violence against women in this "barbaric civil war" will have to do:
Stop Violence Against Women in Congo
Very hard to argue against this campaign, this "Run for Congo Women," no? I'm against violence against women, in Congo and everywhere else.
Any Western narrative about Congo should begin by looking back to, at least, the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, in 1961, ordered by Dwight Eisenhower, which truncated the hopes, potential, and lives of the Congolese people from then to now, despite their hard won, but still nominal, independence, in 1960.
If Kristof or Link TV really wanted to go into this any more deeply, they'd ask why the vast majority of Wetern reportage on violence against women in Congo presents it out of its historical, geopolitical context, obscuring, ignoring foreign competition for Congo's natural resources at the root of the violence.
Hence, most ignore epidemic male on male rape, even though Kristof's own NY Times finally reported it last fall, in "Symbol of Unhealed Congo; Male Rape Victims." At the time that NY Times report was published, Hillary Clinton was on her way to Eastern Congo to address the issue of "gender-based violence," meaning violence against women, but only Ugandan American writer Milton Allimadi, Editor of the Black Star News, connected the dots, in his report, "Targeted Rapes to Spread HIV Started in Uganda."
(See also "Why Nicholas Kristof is Wrong on Congo," on Friends of the Congo';s website.)
