According to the article above, conditions for women in the Democratic Republic of Congo have gotten increasingly worse in the last few months. The maltreatment of women in the area can be summarized into vast reports of rape. While African people dwelling within the country have been appointed the blame for the time being, that is up to debate. This article shows a different twist on the developing country and the women affected in it.
After the Rwanda genocide it is known that "Hutu members of the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR) who had participated in the 1994 Rwandan genocide fled that year over the border into the DRC" and deeply rooted themselves in the country. Over the past years they have grown to 6,000 members strong and have been using the Democratic Republic of Congo as a home base. Since their arrival they have not only be exploiting the country and its women.
In 1996 the Democratic Republic of Congo was given the title of "Rape Capital of the World". Since then the violence has continued and even escalated. Due to these events the UN decided to get involved. Against the pleas of the native people, the UN and Congolese government began a combined military operation named Kimia II, which was supposed to weaken the FDLR by finding and dispersing or arresting its troops. When this initiative was proposed, the NGO's and Congolese activists urged the UN to abort the mission. They claimed that there would not be enough manpower to halt the FDLR's actions. They also suspected that these actions would lead to more retaliation violence. The UN and Congolese government ignored these warnings and pleas and went on with Kimia II.
What occurred after the launch of Kimia II was horrific. It leads to mass rapping's like the most recently Luvungi rapping's that lasted from July 30 to August 3. What is even more alarming is that members of the 2,000 MONUSCO (the UN's peacekeepers) were less than 20 miles away and failed to stop the rapes. They have offered no reasons for their lack of involvement in stopping the violence. Furthermore, the UN has gone as far as to blame other groups for the Luvungi mass rapping's. When asked about the event, UN's new Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Margot Wallstrom simple said, "it's a lesson to learn."
The closing of this article poses thought provoking questions like: Why was no action taken by peacekeepers? What were the peacekeepers doing? If peacekeepers were indeed unaware, why did their intelligence fail? I agree that these questions certainly warrant a response. But what concerns me is the lack of consideration the UN, and our own Hilary Clinton, had for the Congolese people. They completely disregarded the pleas from the activist groups and Congolese representatives that urged the UN and their Government to forgo the mission. We are supposed to be helping these people, not creating even more distress in their lives. When our own government members fail to listen to the cries of such a distressed group of people, who can we rely on?
This would be a good article to analyze for bias and reliability. What questions does this article raise about government and non-government agency responsibilities?
ReplyDeleteI found it interesting that the author found fault with the Congolese government's attempt to weaken a foreign military presence in their own country. Imagine an article that said the US government shouldn't fight Mexican drug gangs in Texas because it might make them mad and bring about more violence. Food for thought.
Allafrica is a clearinghouse of articles from a lot of different sources, and you can find some really good things there, but it's a good idea to drill down to the original source to see how reliable it is.