Even though there was a call for a cease-fire last week in the ongoing conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, fighting continues to plague aid workers trying to bring food and medical supplies into the war-torn region. The full story can be found here:
Over 5 million people have died from fighting in the Congo, making it the most deadly war since WWII. Even so, many Americans don't really know what is happening there, and when they think of conflicts in Africa, only think of Darfur and Rwanda. In the last two years, over 1,000,000 people have been displaced, but there isn't even a good estimate of how many refugees there are from this conflict as a whole, since it is so widespread throughout the region and heavily rooted in the Rwandan genocide and multipule Civil Wars in Congo following that. While a peace deal had been reached back in January, fighting erupted again 3 weeks ago when rebels siezed a military camp outside of Goma. Conflicts erupted between the rebels and UN Peacekeeping troops, and the rebels ended up taking the city. Widespread looting and fighting has continued over the last week, and just now talk about a humanitarian corridor has begun.
How should America approach this? We sent our Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jedayi Frazier to the area to help assess the current situation, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been in constant contact with the Presidents of neighboring countries. If we wanted to send aid, doing it through a political vessel (State Department, sending troops to deliver aid, etc.) might not be the best idea, since the rebels have said multipule times they view UN troops as the enemy and will fight them on sight, and would probably extend that view to cover US troops as well. At the same time, we can not sit by and let people be shot dead for supporting their own government, or for being a part of a specific ethnic group (the conflict between the Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda has crossed the border, and Tutsi and Hutu rebels are heavily involved in the fighting in Congo.) Talks of a regional summit to help promote the peace proccess in the near future put on by the African Union and European Union have started, and hopefully a better way of keeping aid workers safe will be discussed. If aid workers are not able to get to help the refugees that need it most, the humanitarian crisis in the area can only get worse.
1 comment:
I think its great that you are looking into these global issues that we sooooo often overlook. In our society we have become so concerned with ourselves that we forget that there is a whole other world out there. The fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo is a real thing but I don't think America will step up and realize it until its too late like they did with Rwanda and Darfur. These are real global issues that so many people choose not to pay attention to. So how do we change that? How do we make a difference in the world and in our society? How do we get our self-centered society to open their eyes and realize that there are greater issues then whether or not they get that $200 pair of jeans?
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