A three day series of demonstrations are planned for London to highlight the genocide which has occurred in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The three-day demonstration starts on Thursday, June 30, to mark the DRC's 35 years of independence from Belgium. The demonstrations are being organized by the group Awakening of Congolese Patriots.
According to the Waltham Forrest Guardian, day one of the demonstration will end with a six-man delegation handing over a petition with over 1,000 signatures protesting the fate of the Congolese people. As part of the petition, a document outlining the atrocities will also be handed over. On Friday, July 1, there will be a demonstration outside the Congolese Embassy in King's Cross and the next day a march from the South African High Commission in Trafalgar Square to the House of Commons.
Tuku Yoto says demonstrations will also be held in Paris, Brussels and Kinshasa. Yoto told the Waltham Forrest Guardian , "I want to make as many people and governments aware of what's happening to the Congolese people, in the hope that something can be done. It's not just indiscriminate murders that are taking place but also the rape of men and women."
Western media generally do not cover the ongoing war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
In fact, the Christian Science Monitor reports 3.8 million people have died in the Congo since 1998, dwarfing not only the biggest of natural catastrophes, such as December's South Asia tsunami, but also other manmade horrors, such as Darfur. So where is the wall to wall coverage?
After years of civil war a transition government was set up in 2003. But that has not stemmed the dying. An estimated 1,000 people dying there every day…still. It seems that since the transition numerous warlords have been fighting for control of the Congo and its vast economic resources.
And, of course, there is the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) which has set up shop in the eastern Congo and regularly attacks civilians. The FDLR is made up largely of Hutu extremists who slaughtered close to a million people in Rwanda’s genocide.
The Christian Science Monitor rightly asks, “With so many dying and so much at stake, it is simply astounding that Congo isn't in the newspapers and on nightly news regularly. Even a nonlethal car bombing in Iraq or a kidnapping in Afghanistan gets more Western media coverage in a day than Congo gets in a typical month of 30,000 dead. So much for the old TV news editors' saw, ‘If it bleeds, it leads.’"
Could it be more than mere indifference?
American investigative journalist specializing in intelligence and privacy matters, Wayne Madsen, who testified before the Congressional Sub-Committee on International Operations and Human Rights Committee on International Relations, and author of the book "Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa 1993 - 1999" has charged, according to New Era, that US Special Operations Command (SOC) and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) have been running the Congo war since 1996 as "destabilization for profit".
He says the US was deeply involved in troop training on, “both sides of the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.”
He explains, “…the US Department of Defense relies to a great extent on so-called Private Military Contractors (PMCs). Those PMCs were previously known as "mercenaries", when they were deployed from time to time as foreign policy instruments by the colonial powers of Belgium, France, Portugal and South Africa and have close links with some of the leading mining and oil companies involved in Africa.”
New Era points out that as destructive images of Angola, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, Zimbabwe and even South Africa continue to make headlines one should note that all of the above-mentioned countries have a wide range of highly profitable natural resources of strategic minerals. These resources whether it is diamonds, gold, platinum, gem stones, crude oil, copper, uranium, cobalt and columbite-tantalite (or coltan), a primary component of computer microchips and printed circuit boards, high-quality timber and agricultural produce are generally out of reach of Africans themselves. Instead they are pillaged by the industrialized countries of the world. And this according to New Era is the real reason, “… why it is that resource-wealthy African countries have to be reduced to so-called civil and ethnic wars without any functional infrastructure and ridiculously irrelevant currencies.”
It’s something to think about. Sources: Waltham Forrest Guardian, New Era (Namibia), Christian Science Monitor
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