by Michael Gavshon and Drew Magratten
Right now there's a war taking place in the heart of Africa, in the
Democratic Republic of Congo, and more people have died there than in Iraq,
Afghanistan, and Darfur combined.
You probably haven't heard much about it, but as CNN's Anderson Cooper
reports, it's the deadliest conflict since World War II. Within the last ten
years, more than four million people have died and the numbers keep rising.
As Cooper and a 60 Minutes team found when they went there a few months ago,
the most frequent targets of this hidden war are women. It is, in fact, a
war against women, and the weapon used to destroy them, their families and
whole communities, is rape. . . .
To understand what is happening here, you have to go back more than a
decade, when the genocide that claimed nearly a million lives in neighboring
Rwanda spilled over into Congo. Since then, the Congolese army,
foreign-backed rebels, and home-grown militias have been fighting each other
over power and this land, which has some of the world's biggest deposits of
gold, copper, diamonds, and tin. The United Nations was called in and today
their mission is the largest peacekeeping operation in history.
Since 2005, some 17,000 UN troops and personnel have cobbled together a
fragile peace. Last year they oversaw the first democratic election in this
country in 40 years. But now all they have accomplished is at risk. Fighting
has broken out once again in Eastern Congo and the region threatens to slip
into all out war.
Each new battle is followed by pillaging and rape; entire communities are
terrorized. Forced to flee their homes, people take whatever they can, and
walk for miles in the desperate hope of finding food and shelter. Over the
last year, more than 500,000 people have been uprooted. A fraction of them
make it to cramped camps, where they depend on UN aid to survive. . . .
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According to the CIA World Factbook, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is Roman
Catholic 50%, Protestant 20%, Kimbanguist 10%, Muslim 10%, other 10%.
Christian or Christianity were not mentioned by CBS or CNN. Contrast this
with their frequent mention of Muslim and Islam when covering majority
Muslim states.
Enver Masud, "If Hutus And Tutsis Were
Muslim Media Would Say So," The Wisdom Fund, December 10, 1996
Enver Masud, "Holocaust
Remembrance Veils Criminal Policies," The Wisdom Fund, April 22,
2001
David Leigh and David Pallister, "The
New Scramble For Africa," Guardian, June 1, 2005
Robert Menard and Stephen Smith, "Darfur
Needs Peace, Not Peacekeepers," Los Angeles Times, April 14, 2007
[ . . . the Democratic Republic of Congo (70% Christian) . . . has received a
fraction of the media attention devoted to Darfur.--Roger Howard, "Where
anti-Arab prejudice and oil make the difference," Guardian, May 16,
2007]
Craig Timberg, "Report: Congo's War and Aftermath Have Killed 5.4
Million," Washington Post, January 23, 2008
Chris McGreal, "War in
Congo kills 45,000 people each month," Guardian, January 23, 2008
VIDEO: Corporations Reaping
Millions as Congo Suffers Deadliest Conflict Since World War II,"
democracynow.org, January 23, 2008
