Congo has been at war for the past fourteen years; more than six million people have lost their lives due to this conflict. It has been the deadliest conflict since the end of the Second World War. It has been referred to as the African world war, because of the involvement of many African nations at the pick of the hostilities. The nations that fought at one side of the belligerents includes: Rwanda, Burundi, Angola, Namibia, and Zimbabwe. Despites its six million deaths and still counting, the war in Congo is the most underreported conflict in the world.
From 1998 to now, the killings have been raging causing more than a million and half internally displaced people.
There’s been a United Nations presence on the grounds of about two thousand men strong, but in a country the size of Western Europe their presence has not been very effective in stopping the killings. A peace agreement has been signed between the belligerents since two thousand two.
If there was a peace agreement, why are people still dying?
In Congo’s recent history the difference between peace and war has been only in the two words writing. Despites peace treaties, more deaths have occurred, massacres of civilian populations and rape of women have been striving there more than ever while the entire world is turning their face away from the carnage.
What happened to the “never again “announced after the Second World War sixty five years ago at the view of walking skeleton from Nazi concentration camps? Or even recently after the Rwandan genocide in nineteen ninety four?
At this point you may be wondering why, if my allegations are right, you never heard of this or anyone around you as ever told you about it.
Once again this case compels us; as global citizens to: question the objectivity of our media as they cover events in the world. I would suggest you something that I have personally been doing for quite a while now, to question the decision of our leaders; most of all to question the real price of the commodities that makes our society what it is today.
The truth is that you may have heard about the situation in the Congo and dismissed it as another Civil War in Africa, just another case of Africans killing each other. Have you ever question the source of funding of all these wars, the of provenance of all the weapon used in these conflict or better yet, the end destination of the minerals extracted. Would reconsider buying and IPod, an Iphone assorted with the latest Mac book pro, then an IPad; just to site some “must have” commodities of our generation; if they had engraved on them the faces of the children who die to mine the minerals used to make them? What about a sticker with the number of families that have been broken just to provide the Play station that we played at my place last month?
The answer is probably not. You can help break the silence about the war in Congo d make the world a better place. It can be as easy starting a conversation with the write arguments. Please visit: www.friendsofthecongo.org or www.congoweek.org
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
Martin Luther King Jr
