Country Profile and Action: Democratic Republic of the Congo

"Violence against women in conflict is one of history's great silences."
--Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of Liberia

When my husband and I were living in Mozambique in the early months of our marriage, we read Barbara Kingsolver's novel The Poisonwood Bible together. (Actually, for the sake of accuracy: He read the entire novel, all 600 pages of it, out loud while I listened. It took four days of nonstop reading. I thought I had malaria --though it turned out to just be some tropical fever that never was diagnosed-- so I laid on a mattress on the floor burning and freezing by turns for those few days while Joe read and read and read. He only stopped reading to get up a couple of times a day and boil potatoes for us to eat. So I have more than one kind of attachment to this book.) The Poisonwood Bible was our first introduction to the history of the Congo, through fiction, and I highly recommend it to anyone. In addition to being a beautifully-written novel, it's an invitation to learn about the history of the region smack-dab in Africa's heart and grapple with sticky issues like colonialism and cultural imperialism.

The country of Democratic Republic of Congo (also referred to as DRC, RDC, or DR Congo) covers a huge area; it is the third-largest country in Africa and is home to roughly 66 million people from at least 250 different ethnic groups. DRC is often confused with its next-door neighbor, The Republic of Congo (which is also sometimes referred to as the Congo or Congo-Brazzaville; I know, it's confusing). The two countries have a shared history in some respects, but when you hear people referring to the current "crisis in the Congo," they are referring to events in DRC.



So I will condense the long and complicated history of the Congo area for you like this. Originally populated by Bantu peoples, the land area was claimed by King Leopold of Belgium in 1885 and named the Congo Free State (the setting for Joseph Conrad's famous novella The Heart of Darkness). As is so often the case under colonial rule, the local population was brutally exploited; it is estimated that in the first 20 years of colonial rule, 10 million people Africans were killed as a result of exploitative labor practice and disease. King Leopold, on the other hand, made a fortune in rubber. In 1908, when reports about the horrendous conditions in the Free State became internationally known, the Belgian parliament took over the Free State from Leopold and renamed it the Belgian Congo.

In 1960, the Congo was given independence, and a period of political turmoil followed. (This period of political instability is covered eloquently in The Poisonwood Bible.) Nationalist Patrice Lumumba was head of state for a few years, then he was overthrown and Mobutu Sese Soko, one of the truly corrupt dictators of our time, came to power and ruled for three decades. During his rule, the country changed its name frequently (four times in 11 years), and eventually settled on Zaire. At first Mobutu had the support of the U.S. (who viewed him as an ally in the fight against communism). The U.S. supplied $300 million worth of weapons ands $100 million worth of military training to Mobutu's military, but when the Soviet Union collapsed, American support for Mobutu cooled.

In 1997, Laurent Kabila (also backed by the U.S.) toppled Mobutu's regime and became president. There was hope for increasing stability now that Mobutu was gone, but the situation rapidly deteriorated. Neighboring countries (Rwanda, Angola, Uganda, Eritrea, Burundi, Zimbabwe, Namibia) all became involved in the conflict in varying capacities. This part of the history is very confusing, but it seems clear that a battle for natural resources is at the very heart of the conflict. All involved parties have some kind of economic stake in DRC. The conflict has been termed "Africa's First World War" because many countries are involved, but the villages of civilians in DRC make up the real battlegrounds. In 2001, Kabila was assassinated and his son, Joseph Kabila, took over as head of state. A number of peace agreements have been signed, but to no avail. At this point, various government forces and rebel groups (and splinter groups) are involved in a brutal fight over resources.

One key to this conflict is coltan; Roughly 65 percent of the world's coltan reserves are located in DRC. Coltan is a component in cell phones, laptop computers, and other electronic equipment. You've heard of conflict diamonds? While conflict diamonds continue to cause huge problems in DRC, we can add to the list conflict cell phones. This fight over DRC's rich natural resources forms the roots of what TIME magazine termed "the deadliest war in the world."

As I've read about the situation in DRC, I've found myself wondering: Why do we hear so much about Sudan and so little about DRC? I don't want to minimize the atrocities in Sudan; it's horrendous. 400,000 people have died; it's been termed a genocide. But in DRC, an estimated 5 million people have died in the past ten years. Yet most Americans are at least tangentially aware that something bad is happening in Sudan, and fewer people have a sense of what's happening in DRC. I've been reading a book by Richard Dowden called Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles (book review coming; it's fantastic). It helped me formulate my understanding of the Congo's history, and it's also helped me understand why the Congo gets less attention. Essentially, the cause of the Sudanese people was first brought to public attention in the U.S. by two concerned groups: Some Christian groups, who were concerned that African Christians were being targets of violence, and African-American groups who were concerned about reports of Arab northerners enslaving black African southerners in Sudan. The U.S., as we know, typically responds to international atrocities in proportion with its own self-interest. In this case, a relevant fact in U.S. interference was this: Sudan has lots of oil--700 million barrels of it. Other articles, like this one from the Guardian, have reinforced my sense that the U.S.'s initial condemnation of Sudan was linked to Sudan's role as an oil-producing country. Some authors have also mentioned the role of anti-Arab prejudice in U.S. foreign policy. Or maybe it's because in Sudan, the Janjaweed is targeting and killing civilians based on their ethnicity (hence the conflict being labeled as genocide), but the conflict in the Congo has followed a path that is common in modern African warfare. There is little direct combat between armies, and the majority of the people are dying from factors related to the displacement and poverty that are consequences of warfare. Starvation, disease, and frequently, side effects of rape--and of course, the violence perpetrated on civilians by fighters on all sides of the conflict.

Regardless of the reasons we have heard less about DRC, these facts remain: 5 million dead. (That's roughly equivalent to the total population of Utah, Idaho and Montana combined.) 1,000 people dying every day. Half of these deaths are children. An estimated 1.5 million people displaced. In recent days and weeks, I've been reading an increasing number of reports about problems in DRC: In the past few weeks, tens of thousands more people have been driven from their homes. A new wave of fighting erupted in recent weeks. Cholera and measles epidemics in refugee camps. Difficulties in getting emergency aid to people because of the widespread insecurity. Increasing attacks by the Lord's Resistance Army from Uganda.

As is often the case, civilians, especially children, are suffering the most in DRC. The statistics are grim. An estimated 33,000 Congolese children work as child soldiers, having been forcibly recruited. Fully one-third of all Congolese children are malnourished, and one-quarter of children are engaged in child labor. There are 4 million orphans in the country. (Many of these kids have been orphaned by violence, but nearly a million have also lost parents to AIDS.) Less than half the population has access to clean drinking water. Over 2 million people has been displaced. There is extremely limited access to healthcare, which compounds the fact that diseases are more likely to spread when people are living in close quarters without access to clean water or adequate nutrition. Infant mortality rates have reached 41 percent in the eastern part of the country; that means that nearly half of the babies born, die.

One of the truly horrendous components of this conflict is the systematic use of rape and sexual violence as a weapon of war. This is not new or unique to the conflict in DRC; All over the world and throughout history, rape has been used to destroy communities, dehumanize and injure women and children, and psychologically wreck families. But in DRC, the presence of rape has reached a particularly terrifying level. The DRC has been ranked as one of the worst places in the world to be a woman or a child. It's virtually impossible to get accurate statistics, but it's believed that hundreds of thousands of women and children have been victims of rape over the past decade.

I read an article by Eve Ensler about a year ago that brought the issue of sexual violence in DRC to the forefront for me. It's in an unlikely publication (Glamour), but I encourage you to read it here. I'm not going to address this issue in much more detail. Read Ensler's article or visit peacewomen.org for links to stories about the atrocities and sexual violence being levied against women and children in DRC.

A film, called "The Greatest Silence," was made to give Congolese women the chance to tell their stories about rape and sexual assault. I haven't had the opportunity to see the film in its entirety, but I'm posting the trailer here. Film can be, in my opinion, such a powerful conveyor of personhood that even just this trailer can bring the atrocities to life and make us care more deeply about exploited people:



So what can you do? I was hoping you'd ask...

* Write a Letter to the Editor of your local newspaper(s). It is unbelievable to me how little press DRC is getting considering the magnitude of the crisis. Many people are totally unaware of the situation of Congolese women and children, and this feels unacceptable to me. I'm going to be condensing this blog posting and creating a letter to the editor; I'll let you know if it gets published anywhere. (And make sure you let me know if yours does!)

* Send the link to this blog to your friends and family. Sometimes people hesitate to talk to their friends and family about issues like these because they don't want to get political, but this issue does not belong to any particular point on the political spectrum: It belongs to all of us.

* Sign a petition urging Congress to pass the International Violence Against Women Act (I-VAWA) (S.2279, HR.5927). From the website: "Drafted in consultation with more than 150 groups around the world, the IVAWA is a groundbreaking piece of legislation that incorporates proven solution for reducing violence into U.S. international assistance programs. It would impact millions of women, empowering them with tools to escape abuse and poverty."

* Write your representative in the Senate asking them to support Bill S. 3058 (Conflict Coltan and Cassiterite Act of 2008), which asks our government to document a list of groups that are benefiting from inhumane mining practices in DRC, and prohibit the importation of coltan and casseriterite that benefits these groups. To help you in drafting your letter, you can read more about conflict coltan and cassiterite here and here.

* Sign a petition to the president calling for the U.S. to promote peace, protect people, and prosecute perpetrators in DRC.

* Send letters. Amnesty International has two form letters available that you can send directly from their website to American and Congolese officials, indicating your concern about the situation in DRC.

* Be an informed consumer. I've been trying to find a list of tech companies that boycott coltan mined in DRC, but I'm not having much luck finding this kind of information. Does anyone know where it can be accessed? For information on conflict-free diamonds (if you're in the market for jewelry), click here. And for information on being a responsible global consumer of several products (including tech products), click here.

* Learn more. Click here to access a list of films, books and articles that will help you learn more about the history and current situation in DRC. The more you know, the more persuasively you will be able to talk to your family and friends, and encourage them to take action too.

You can find a detailed list of organizations and grassroots movements working to fight violence against women in DRC here.