By John Kamau
02/12/2002
Daily Nation on the Web

The following editorial on the situation on the humanitarian situation eastern Congo ran in the Nairobi newspaper, The Daily Nation, on February 1. The editorial is based on Refugees International's January 28 bulletin, "Eastern Congo: Beyond the Volcano, A Slow Motion Holocaust." The Daily Nation piece offers a welcome perspective from Africa on the overall humanitarian emergency in the Congo.

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Friday, February 1, 2002

With all the might with which Democratic Congo's Mt. Nyiragongo erupted, it killed only less than 200 people. In contrast, the number so far killed in the civil war approaches 1.5 million.

And yet the world is yet to react to that horror. That is not normal. Is it that we are no longer concerned? Is it because the Congo is deep in the heart of Africa, rich and with a working war economy?

These are not easy questions to ask the able international community, even with all its might to stop this war. But we have to pose them. For there comes a time in the history of mankind when the world community must put a stop to madness, no matter how big a price we have to pay.

The Congo makes a mockery of the very first sentence of the preamble to the UN Charter--"to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war."

In its latest report, American NGO Refugees International (RI) describes the Congolese war as "equivalent of daily volcanic eruptions, but with far greater social and economic consequences."

It minces no words: "The efforts of the international community appear feeble and ineffective, dwarfed by the scale of the suffering they are intended to mitigate."

Although a UN Observer Mission to the Congo (MONUC) was deployed to specifically monitor implementation of the Lusaka Accord, we are told that "MONUC merely observes the violence that swirls through the country ... while frustrated and bewildered Congolese hope for more aggressive action from the international community to stop the conflict."

Why are we all watching the Congo burn? This is not the first time we are being told about the Congolese being "... at the mercy of armed groups who steal crops, murder civilians, rape women, and capture children with impunity."

But it is the first time we hear that "women were unable to bring their children for vaccination because they had no clothes and could not be seen in public in daylight hours" and about men who could only work "in the predawn hours for the same reason."

The 1999 Lusaka Peace Accords called for withdrawal of foreign troops from the Congo, but the West's blue-eyed boys, Rwanda and Uganda, still maintain troops there. It is time all those feeding eastern Congo with ammunition were named and acted against.

The kind of pettiness exhibited by the groups involved in the inter-Congolese dialogue should not be entertained. The last meeting supposed to be held at Sun City, South Africa, last month was put on hold simply because some groups felt South Africa's "Gambling Capital" was not an appropriate for serious political discussions.

The few gestures made to withdraw foreign forces are not enough and must be followed by a active desire to see peace return. And that can only happen if Uganda and Rwanda stop backing the rebels.

Of late, Rwandan-backed Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD) and the Mayi-Mayi have been trying to show their military might ahead of the inter-Congolese dialogue.

Refugees International has thrown an interesting challenge to the international community, which should be taken up. If we are to seduce Rwanda out of the Congo, we must agree to exchange that with a guarantee of security on Rwanda's western border.

Also, Kinshasa must stop the tacit support it gives to both the Mayi-Mayi and the Interahamwe, suspected to have been behind the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. But the political scenario on the ground is different.

"Neither (Rwanda's) Paul Kagame nor (the Congo's) Joseph Kabila appears willing to reach such an accommodation, leaving the Congolese people caught in an endless cycle of violence that is justified by the intransigence of the other party," says Refugees International.

And that is where the international community comes in. The violence and the anarchy in this mineral-rich region makes it easy for Western companies to make a profit. But at what cost to the local community? In Shabunda, we are told, "the Mayi-Mayi use rape as a tactic of war to prevent displaced women from seeking shelter in the town from accessing their fields."

We also hear of child prostitution in Goma. A recent survey showed that 38 out of 41 child sex "workers" had been displaced from the countryside. We hear about the situation in the agriculturally rich Maniema Province, where the "impossibility of marketing agricultural products means that a bag of rice has no more value than a bar of soap. Unmilled rice is used on muddy roads to give traction to trucks."

And as that happens, people are going hungry in Goma! And nobody cares. What a commentary on humanity!

Mr. Kamau is the editor of Rights Features Service

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