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Heart of Darkness

Written by Bosibori Ndemo
Friday, 02 February 2007
The ghosts of the long dead tyrannical regime of the late Mobutu Seseko still terrorize the people of Eastern Congo. The aftermath is an illicit affair with insurgent militias, and perpetual neglect by the international community as darkness prevails. A chilling scene from the Oprah Show, courtesy of a documented scene by Lisa Ling of National Geographic leaves me paralyzed with shock. Here is the peak at which ordinary, innocent people are brutally ensnared in the crucible of an insatiable, savage elitist greed to control wealth and resources. At the same time the rest of the world bears limp witness to the call of humanity; respect for life turns in its grave, a long buried notion that has been gouged out from the conscience of the warring factions in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). A Congolese woman in her late 30's, her hand broken and deformed by a lack of medical attention, emotionally numbed, tells of her traumatic experience at the hands of young insurgent militias. They she says, broke into her house, dragged her out and lashed out at her with kicks and blows. Then they brutally beat up her teenage son for resisting their orders to rape her. Finished with him, they returned to her, raping her in his presence. Shocking to us, but to the scores of fleeing refugees in the Eastern Congo, slavery, kidnappings, child soldiers, savage killings, physical and psychological torture are painful daily occurrences. As pacified statistics and the local and international media use ‘pretty' terms to veil blatant genocide, it respites the urgent need by the international community to address the constant breech of the social contract by the DRC government to its people, and of duties under international law by the global community. The failure by the DRC government to protect its people against insecurity and atrocities is a saddening manifestation of the inestimable price civilians have to pay as a result of this breech. To most of the world the civil war in Congo was declared to have come to a halt in 2003, but invading armies from Rwanda, a local military insurgency and conflicting displaced former rebels still rule some pockets of the DRC. There, war crimes and the abuse of the most basic human rights are prevalent. Doubts mount as to whether efforts to eradicate these belligerent militias are fully-baked, as accusations of local and international interests arming rebel armies in exchange for mining concessions abound. Surprisingly, initial efforts by the U.N peacekeeping troops and allied armies from nearly half a dozen states met little success in putting out these insurgent uprisings. While the element of state sovereignty plays a major part in the hesitancy by some states and international bodies to intervene on a larger scale, there's a greater urge to indifference and mere quick-fix-aid to sooth the symptoms but not the cause. What makes African states so neglectful? If the tables were turned and the same scene occurred in Europe,would the UN Security Council and other concerned agencies be as sluggish in combating such a crisis ?... it would undeniably be the new theme for news stations and talk shows the world over...probably the advent of a Third World War. Why do we not care? Related Articles: Enough! Participate in crafting the budget 2008-2009 Better showing from Raila Odinga A Case for an afro-centric culture Women, merit and public office in Kenya. Set as favorite Bookmark Email This Trackback(0) TrackBack URI for this entry Comments (6) Subscribe to this comment's feed Show/Hide comments Its not just Europe written by Nekessa , February 02, 2007 The same atrocities happened in Eastern Europe. African leaders need to step up and be more critical of each other. However, how can they do this since they are almost all in the same league. It is unfortunate that mass murders such as this and those in Darfur keep happening... . Look at West Africa, the state of affairs in Liberia and Sierra Leone. And now recently, there has been reports of clashes in Kenya once again! report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0 Africans are the problem written by Chameleon , February 02, 2007 Case and point: SOMALIA Out of the 50 plus African countries we still cant come up with 8000 solders to do peace keeping in Somalia. Ask yourself, if Africa does not solve its problems then who will? You dont need alot of money to do somethings. You just need the will power report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0 Xtics of a young continent written by Hope , February 05, 2007 Africa shall prevail. One day, one day...the African will learn to say no to diamonds for machettes and such! Until then, lets just have courage. report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0 re: Somalia written by aeichener , February 08, 2007 Out of the 50 plus African countries we still cant come up with 8000 solders to do peace keeping in Somalia. Give the job to the Italians rather. They have been successful at it. After World War II under UN mandate, too. Alexander report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0 ... written by aeichener , February 12, 2007 Okay, that was a shot ffrom the hip (still a good hit, guess). But it does not do justice to Bosibori's initial essay. BB, you have the gift to write so powerfully, so compelling, so wrenching... I clenched my teeth when reading it. A similar article in the past dealed with the female victims of civil wars and of the unleashed brutality and misogyny of those conflicts I remember there weas very little response to that either; probably not because readers did not care, but because it hurt to much, and feels so powerless after having stomached it. Incidentally, Neesha's article also fits in here. Sigh Alexander report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0 This is not Africas War written by Phil , February 13, 2007 Apart from South Africa and Egypt, no other African country manufactures(d) guns. The most common and favourite gun for the african continent, legendary for its ruggedness and reliability, easy to clean and maintain and is used on the continent is the AK-47 rifle (The AK-47 shortened from Russian: Avtomat Kalashnikova 1947). This gun, manufactured in Europe, with production up to this day is so light that even children in militias use them. My point is that guns don’t originate from Africa, they cross the seas and oceans and someone on the other side is benefiting (getting rich) by sending these guns to Africa. Its true that problems beget problems, and these “people” capitalize on Africans illiteracy and greed. No one likes to live in poverty, so these Africans form militias to earn a living. Lots of diamonds are mined from Africa, but the countries that don’t have stable governments are kept that way so that certain countries and people benefit from the instability. Without proper governance, there is no accountability. These diamonds are sold as very expensive jewelry in the countries across the oceans, leaving the people who live “war-torn”, “unstable” countries in poverty. Look at most African countries that have oil, minerals or something worth mining, like southern Sudan, Angola, Mozambique, Botswana, D. R. Congo and so on, are the poorest on the continent while some of them hold the worlds largest reserves/stocks of minerals. An example is Democratic Republic of Congo where, warring rebel groups are exploiting coltan mining leaving the country poor and in war. Most of the worldwide tantalum supply - valued at as much as US $6 billion a year - comes from legitimate mining operations in Australia, Canada and Brazil. But as demand for tantalum took off with the boom of high-tech products in recent years, a new, more illegitimate market began flourishing. Coltan has become an important raw material in manufacturing electronics. The tantalum extracted from the ore is used mainly to make tantalum capacitors, tiny components that manage the flow of current in electronic devices. The market for the material is enormous, over 60 percent finding its way into the electronics industry, where it’ll be found in cell phones and so on. So you can see that europe, asia and america are the major consumers with the United States of America taking the largest share. When I was in Somalia I was told that for one to become rich, they needed a gun. These guns are used to steal, kill and encourage wars. This notion has now filtered down to the common man. Finally, these atrocities we all talk about including land clashes in Kenya, genocide and so on, are not because we cant find peace, only that someone, some country living in peace and luxury is deliberately not letting peace prevail, because they’ll stop benefitting from the oil, the minerals and so on, that these poor countries have. The sooner they stop their greed, the sooner Africa finds peace. report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0 Show/Hide comment form Write comment Name Email Title Comment smaller \| bigger Subscribe via email (Registered users only) I have read and agree to the Terms of Usage. Write the displayed characters
Last Updated ( Monday, 12 February 2007 )