Rediscovering Congo

Two decades in, the world wakes up to a tragedy. So what are we going to do about it?

BY JASON STEARNS | MAY 12, 2011

These are strange, exhilarating times to be working on the Democratic Republic of the Congo. For the first time since full-fledged war broke out in the central African country in 1996, the American public seems to be waking up to the brutality of the conflict there. Over the past year, there has been a flurry of activity inside and outside the Beltway -- in congressional hearings, Oprah shows, and Broadway theater. The country's ongoing rape epidemic is finally getting front-page treatment. Congress passed a bill specifically on the Congo, and lawmakers and corporate boards in California, Pittsburgh, and universities around the country may soon follow suit.

For those of us who have been writing about or working in Congo for over a decade, this attention is anachronistic. Past is the height of the war, when nine African countries slugged it out through the country's jungles, savannahs, and highlands, splitting the country into half a dozen fiefdoms. Since 2003, the country has been unified; troops from Rwanda, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and Angola have (largely) withdrawn. Elections were held in 2006, confirming Joseph Kabila -- who had taken over after his father's assassination in 2001 -- as president.

Despite the peace deal, violence has escalated in recent years in the eastern Kivus region -- along the border with Rwanda and Burundi -- as the government has tried to root out remaining armed groups through brutal counterinsurgency campaigns. While conflict has become confined to a smaller area and is less regional, it is still incredibly vicious. A study released this week in a U.S. medical journalconcludes that more than 400,000 women are being raped a year, with between 17 percent to 40 percent of women in the east reporting sexual assault during their lifetime.

But the violence in eastern Congo is sadly not new. So why this sudden flurry of attention? The novelty is the grassroots mobilization around the issue in the United States. For years, the sheer complexity of the conflict -- more than 50 different Congolese armed groups have seen the light of day in the past decade, fighting for a host of reasons -- has been the bane of reporters and activists alike. How can you make someone care about a conflict you can't explain? In 2006, even the New York Times' Nicholas Kristof attempted to justify why he wasn't writing much about the Congo: "I grant that the suffering is greater in Congo. But our compass is also moved by human evil, and that is greater in Darfur." Good guys vs. bad guys make for an easier story. It has always been difficult to reduce the Congolese conflict to such simple binaries.

But the needle began moving back toward Congo in 2007, when John Prendergast founded the Enough Project. Prendergast, a former National Security Council director, felt stymied by the limitations of his work with the International Crisis Group (which aimed to influence high-level policymakers). "I knew that unless Americans started putting pressure on their elected officials, nothing was going to change," he told me. And in order to rally those grassroots, his new organization had to boil the conflicts in Africa -- starting with Sudan and now including the Congo and Uganda -- down to a more simple narrative and focus on the naked suffering.

 SUBJECTS:
 

Jason Stearns is author of Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa. He has been working on the Congo for the past 10 years, most recently as the head of a United Nations expert panel.

JESPAH

6:57 PM ET

May 12, 2011

Rediscovering Congo

Thank you, Jason! Nell

 

JEAN KAPENDA

9:44 AM ET

May 13, 2011

When China Mastered Strategic Thinking in Foreign Policy

In 2008, after 24 years spent in exile, I went back to the Congo for a snapshot, a glimpse on the former Zaire. I took a taxi cab from the Congo-Zambia border town of Kasumbalesa to Lubumbashi, Katanga, the very heart of that incredibly rich country, the size of the United States east of the Mississippi River. Gosh, Chinese were paving that road at an incredible pace and charging the Congolese for the same road they would use to take minerals out of Congo into smelters in Zambia and to China. Some would say "wa-ñing" China, welcome China, for the emerging red giant has learned the greatest lesson in foreign policy, which sadly states: we do not have friends but interests! Does China care about Rwanda? No! There isn't much to get out of there, except a few bags of coffee they could get cheaper in Asia! How about Uganda? Forget it! When China looks at the Africa map, they focus on where to get strategic minerals and other resources needed to rule the world. Congo- the country that reshaped the world during World War II by providing the United States with the uranium used to manufacture the first atomic bomb dropped over Japan and by starving Hitler's Germany of the industrial diamonds the Wehrmacht needed to maintain its military production- is still of a vital interest for Chinese strategists. Will such an interest lead to neo-colonization? You never know. However, one thing remains clear: China has mastered strategic thing in foreign policy!

 

JEAN KAPENDA

9:47 AM ET

May 13, 2011

Last line edited

Last line edited: "China has mastered strategic thinking in foreign policy!"

 

STEVE_M

11:42 AM ET

May 13, 2011

Agreed with Jean

Expecting a US/Euro boycott to shut down conflict minerals (even if just in Congo) is a false hope. China's focus is on interests, not people. This applies to both foreigners and fellow Chinese citizens. By buying more expensive nonconflict minerals, we'll only be subsidizing China's morally bankrupt acquisition policies. China's idea of willing seller, willing buyer is one dimensional - it accounts only for price.

 

EMINPASHA

4:30 PM ET

May 13, 2011

There are better ideas

So the U.S. government, which can’t control the flow of immigrants or drugs into this country despite vast resources and political will, is somehow supposed to stop Congolese warlords from selling mud to Chinese entrepreneurs? And it’s supposed to do this by developing some sort of cooperative arrangement with Fortune 500 companies, international NGOs, and the Congolese government—itself the main perpetrator of human rights abuses in the country? I have a hard time imagining how that might work. But I can imagine how it might hurt. A million Congolese depend on artisanal mining for their daily sustenance. Who feeds their children when we eliminate their ability to make a living?

 

ALEXANDER JAMES

11:18 PM ET

May 13, 2011

Waking up to Congo

Didn't know Congo had been at war since 1996. Like almost always happens Americans don't wake up to what's going on until it's way past its prime.

"Rooting out" armed rebels is something governments throughout history have done. It usually fails to quell the underlying spirit because the root problem which causes the rebellion remains.

Most of the time these things are a result of lack of Fap Turbo money, lack of food, lack of clean drinking water or otherwise substandard living conditions especially in Africa.

 

GK

1:09 PM ET

June 2, 2011

Consumers Can Have Big Effect on Politics

Thanks for this in-depth article. It's amazing how quickly the politics of an issue can change once consumers realize what their purchases are funding. But let's hope that policymakers follow through and really help change conditions in Congo for the better. Most gold is used to make jewelry, so this is an issue that jewelers are watching closely. - GK, Brilliant Earth, www.brilliantearth.com

 

LILLIE148

1:34 AM ET

June 11, 2011

Rediscovering Congo

Two decades in, the world wakes up to a tragedy. So what are we going to do about it? Thanks for this in-depth article. It's amazing how quickly the politics of an issue can change once consumers realize what their purchases are funding. But let's hope that policymakers follow through and really help change conditions in Congo for the better. Most gold is used to make jewelry, so this is an issue that jewelers are watching closely. - GK, Brilliant Earth, www.brilliantearth.com foreclosure listings Didn't know Congo had been at war since 1996. Like almost always happens Americans don't wake up to what's going on until it's way past its prime. "Rooting out" armed rebels is something governments throughout history have done. It usually fails to quell the underlying spirit because the root problem which causes the rebellion remains. Most of the time these things are a result of lack of Fap Turbo money, lack of food, lack of clean drinking wate.

 

MATT PETELICKY

6:57 AM ET

June 12, 2011

Chinese were paving that road

Chinese were paving that road at an incredible pace and charging the Congolese for the same road they would use to take minerals out of Congo into smelters in Zambia and to China. Some would say "wa-ñing" China, welcome stavkove kancelarie China, for the emerging red giant has learned the greatest lesson in foreign policy, which sadly states: we do not have friends but interests! Does China care about Rwanda? No! There isn't much to get out of there, except a few bags of coffee they could get cheaper in Asia! How about Uganda? Forget it! When China looks at the Africa map, they focus on where to get strategic minerals and other resources needed to rule the world. Congo- the country that reshaped the world during World War II by providing the United States with the uranium used to manufacture the first atomic bomb dropped over Japan and by starving Hitler's Germany of the industrial diamonds the Wehrmacht stavkove kancelarie needed to maintain its military production- is still of a vital interest for Chinese strategists.it’s supposed to do this by developing some sort of cooperative arrangement with Fortune 500 companies, international NGOs, and the Congolese government—itself the main perpetrator of human rights abuses in the country? I have a hard time imagining how that might work. But I can imagine how it might hurt. A million Congolese depend on artisanal mining for their daily sustenance.