The Devil's Cauldron

Right now people are dying! At this very moment, while “Everybody’s All-American” sits at Starbucks sipping on his $5.00 latte, checking e-mail on his $1500.00 Mac notebook, and texting his friends on his $500.00 phone, women and children are being raped and mutilated! At this very moment, old men sit at Hardee’s drinking coffee, discussing whats going to happen to their retirement in this economy and arguing over whether the Cardinals, or Yankees, will contend this year, while an entire nation of people is starving! In a world of convenience and self serving desires, it seems that we in America are content to ignore the horror that exists in a world that seems far away enough that we can ignore it, and at least pretend it doesn’t exist. War and genocide have continued in the Democratic Republic of Congo for over 10 years. Unfortunately, there is no end in sight to the violence, rape, torture, and disease as long as the Western world chooses to ignore the situation. These people are weak and don’t have the resources, or a voice, to defend themselves. Their only hope is for us, in the western world, to start fighting for them. We must be a voice for the lost, and we must make Washington hear our cries. We are the hope of a nation where all hope seems lost! Without significant foreign intervention, it is apparent, that there is no foreseeable resolution to the ongoing conflict and genocide in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In order to understand the crisis that has existed and continues to develop in the Congo, it is important to have an informed historical account of the warring factions. Lydia Polgreen, the West African Bureau Chief of the New York Times, notes in her article “Resolving Crisis in Congo Hinges on Foreign Forces,” that the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo is a tangled web of conflict that has drawn in neighboring Countries and led to the deaths of more than four million people (A.14). I t is quite clear that this atrocity is inextricably tied to the Rwandan genocide that occurred during the 1990’s. This Rwandan genocide resulted from racial tensions between Hutus and Tutsis within the region. These tensions led to the genocide of the Tutsi population, carried out by the Rwandan Hutu Militia. The Hutu militia and soldiers who carried out the genocide in Rwanda and Burundi fled into Zaire (the Congo) in 1994, after being dispersed when a Tutsi-led rebel force toppled the Rwandan government (A.14). Andrew Purvis, an award winning Canadian journalist and foreign correspondent for Time magazine, documents in his report “A Contagion of Genocide,” that this mass exodus included at least one million Rwandans (38). Members of the conquered Hutu Army, devastated by defeat at the hands of the Tutsis, then joined the Zairian Hutu and began raping, torturing and killing Zairian Tutsi (38). Observers believe that the Hutu’s goal was to develop a “Hutu Nation” on Zairian soil that would provide a safe place for refugees and a base for more armed attacks on Rwanda (38). The problems in Zaire illuminate the distrust and hatred that has evolved in the region. Neither the Tutsi minority, who where victimized by the genocide in 1994, nor the Hutu majority, who where ousted from their homeland as a result, have any desire to negotiate (39). This bitter race war between Hutus and Tutsis has been at the root of the crisis in the Congo ever since. In his essay “The Trouble With Congo; How Local Disputes Fuel Regional Conflict” from Foreign Affairs, Severine Autesserre reveals that historical conflicts of this sort have also fueled fighting between manysmaller groups from different tribes, such as the Hemas and Lendus of Ituri in the province of Orientale , and the Bembes, the Holoholos, and the Kalangas in northern Katanga, impeding the return of displaced persons and refuges (95).

On paper the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo officially ended approximately six years ago, and in 2006 the first elected Congolese government in four decades took office according to Lydia Polgreen, in her New York Times article “Frustration With Charities and U.N. Grows in Congo.” However, the reality is that although the “war” may have ended, the “conflict” has not (1.35). Fighting in the region led to the diaspora of almost a half million people between 2006 and 2007 (1.35). This statistic doesn’t include the numbers since. Because of this chaos and dispersion of its people since the beginning of the war in Congo in 1996, hunger and disease have long been the main source of death (1.35). Many people crowd in with relatives in provincial towns to avoid refugee camps, making themselves more vulnerable to disease (1.35). A primary example of the disease infecting the region is Cholera (1.35). When people flock to the cities, they carry it with themselves (1.35). Cholera then spreads like wildfire due to crowded and unsanitary conditions (1.35). Another major issue, directly linked to displacement, is the question of how to get food to these refugees. A large number of these people are farmers, and displacement makes food sources an issue immediately (1.35). Because road conditions are horrible, it has made it virtually impossible to get food supplies into the area (1.35). Equally as troubling, when populations are able to return home they are unable to farm, because rebels and army soldiers rape the women who do leave their villages to farm. This makes these displaced people dependant on handouts that are few and far between (1.35).

While hunger and disease in the Congo have been a major contributor to the tragedy in the region since its civil war began, nothing compares to the horrible acts of genocide that continue in the region every day. The largest target of these atrocities has, by and large, been the female population. As fore mentioned, the war in the Congo officially ended around 2006 with the signing of an official “Peace Agreement.” Unfortunately, the “Peace Agreement” was not worth the paper it was documented on. It brought an end to the “war” but not the “violence.” Rae Gomes unveils in his article “What You Can Do About the War in Congo” from The Nation, that statistics show almost half of a million women have been raped in the past 10 years (8). This form of genocide, more properly coined femicide, is the planned and strategic destruction of the female population (8). The results of these brutal attacks are horrifying. Women are victims of mass rapes. Assaulted and violated with knives and guns, these women commonly suffer fistulas as a result of these unspeakable acts (8). As unbelievable and disgusting as it may sound, mothers have been forced to eat dead babies. HIV- infected soldiers are sent into villages to rape wives in front of there husbands, while daughters are violated as their fathers are forced to watch (8). This is a deliberate attempt to break down the family network as part of a much larger and complicated agenda, seeking to loosen the communities grip on its natural resources. These resources include not only diamonds and gold, but more important coltan, used to make laptops and cell phones (8).

Although disease, hunger and genocide are all horrible results of the ongoing war in the region known as the Congo, it is important to stress that, at the root of all that has transpired in the Congo, is the racial tension between tribes, and the conflict that has
evolved as a result. Severine Autesserre explains in his essay “The Trouble with Congo; How Local Disputes Fuel Regional Conflict,” that centuries-old antagonisms amongst different ethnic groups, clans, and families are fighting over competing claims (95). These ethnic groups include groups such as the Hundes, the Nandes, and the Nyangas (95). However, the fiercest dispute is an opposition to the Congolese of Rwandan decent (95).
Belgian colonial administrators relocated over 85,000 people, both Hutu and Tutsi, from overpopulated Rwanda to the sparse Kivu provinces in Congo, and in the 1960’s and 1970’s various waves of Tutsis fled there to escape pogroms in Rwanda. Today, Congolese of Rwandan descent, especially the Tutsis among them, own most of the land, but the Hundes and the Nyangas continue to claim it as their own on the grounds that it was never rightfully sold or given away. (95)The history of racial cleansing and dispersion as a result, is at the root of conflicts over land in the region, which is at the core of the fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo (95).

One of the major stumbling blocks in reaching a peaceful resolution to the continuing crisis in Congo is the problem with humanitarian efforts in the region. In recent years, while most of the world has been transfixed by the war in Iraq, genocide has continued in the Congo and left the United Nations desperate for help in its humanitarianefforts in the region, according to Robert Block and Alix M. Freedman, in their report “The U.N.: Searching for Relevance; U.N. Peacekeeping is a Troubled Art, Congo Mess Shows; Rich Nations No Longer Send Troops, and Sometimes There’s No Peace to Keep; Uraguayans in Devil’s Cauldron.” The U.N. has in recent times had to rely on poorly armed soldiers from small Countries, who end up watching war crimes unfold around them (A.1). Nations with the most capable armies like the U.S., Britain, and France, being fed up with U.N. peacekeeping bureaucracy, have, for all practical purposes, decided that taking part in U.N. peacekeeping operations is a lost cause (A.1). There is essentially too much red tape involved in the U.N. troop recruitment process (A.1). In her report for The Voice of America, Mona Ghuneim states that a former U.S. State Department official and a Harvard University health director both agree that it is imperative for the United States to take the lead in coming up with, and implementing solutions to the crisis in Congo (Ghuneim). One U.S. aid organization that works with victims of rape and slavery in the region argues that the situation continues to worsen and will mean even more sexual violence, displacement, and rejection of families without the United States taking a larger role (Ghuneim).
Harvard Medical School professor, Dr. Michael VanRooyen, has worked in international disaster relief and humanitarian aid. He said his recent work with focus groups of men and women who have suffered from the violence in eastern Congo has given him insight into what the people want, and need. He said women victims in particular would like to see the United States provide more practical assistance. (Ghuneim)
They desire access to medical services, psycho-social support and job training for independence and individual financial power (Ghuneim).

In a world where we as a nation, by and large, see ourselves in America as the “Voice of Reason” to the rest of the world, there is absolutely no reasoning in our lack, or willingness there of, to get more involved with the effort to bring peace to the dark and destitute region known as “The Devil’s Cauldron.” While we set at home, safe in the confines of our trivial existence, the voices of millions of men, women, and children are crying out from the Congo, and we must answer the call. Although, without the help of the American government and military as a whole, the situation seems somewhat hopeless, we as individuals can do things to make a difference. Several great ideas are duly noted by Rae Gomes in “What You Can Do About the War in Congo.” One purposeful approach is to write your elected officials and demand an increase in U.N. peacekeepers, including women, who are specifically trained in sexual violence (8). Every American, young, old, man, and woman, of every socio-economic background, has an opportunity to bring light to one of the darkest places in the world. We must educate others and ourselves about the history of Congo, its connection to Rwandan genocide, and the economic war that fuels the violence (8). We must demand President Obama and his administration to pressure Rwandan and Congolese leaders to set down at the negotiating table. We must encourage him and his administration to stop supporting Laurent Nkunda and the Democratic Forces for Liberation of Rwanda (8). Individuals can also provide monetary support and resources by donating to groups such as City of Joy, V-Day, and UNICEF (8).

Due to their economic status and lack of support, along with their unwillingness to compromise, it is quite clear. Without significant assistance from foreign nations,
primarily the United States and its free peoples, the Democratic Republic of Congo will continue on a path of war, disease, genocide, rape, and starvation. The call has been made. Who will answer?