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| Congo
War Claims 1,000 Lives Per Day |
Posted:
01.12.05 | |
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Despite the horrific images of the tsunami aftermath in South Asia that continue
to draw international attention, the most deadly place in the world remains the
African nation of Congo, where fighting has taken more lives than any other conflict
since World War II, according to a new report from International Rescue Committee
(IRC). Printer-friendly versions: PDF | |
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More than 1,000 civilians die each day as a result of the simmering civil war,
the group said, citing statistics from on-site medical teams.  Six
years of war have claimed about 3.8 million lives - half of them children.
According
to aid organizations, most of those killed are victims of disease and famine brought
on by the war. Most deaths are from easily treatable ailments, including measles,
but the victims live in the still-isolated eastern region of the country. "You
could say it is a tsunami every five months, year in and year out, in the Congo.
And it can be prevented," said the top United Nations aid official, Jan Egeland,
this week as he urged donors to extend generosity sparked by the tsunami catastrophe
to the 26 million people facing death in "forgotten crises" from the
Congo to the occupied Palestinian territories. | |
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| A
complicated war | |
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Much of the violence in Democratic Republic of the Congo can be traced to ethnic
clashes that have raged throughout the region, and to ongoing power struggles
for the region's rich natural resources.
 For
more than 30 years the Congo was known as Zaire and ruled by a brutal dictator,
Mobutu Sese Seko.
But Mobutu's rule began to unravel in the 1990s
after ethnic Hutu rebels, known as the Interahamwe, fled into Zaire. The Interahamwe
had just orchestrated the mass killing of some 500,000 to 800,000 people in neighboring
Rwanda. When the victims, mostly ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus, finally
forced the brutal regime from power, many of the killers escaped just a few hundred
miles west into Mobutu's nation.
Mobutu allowed the Hutu
rebels to remain, which threatened the now Tutsi-governed Rwanda and another neighboring
country, Uganda. So Rwanda and Uganda recruited a rebel leader, Laurent Kabila,
to lead a revolt to bring down Mobutu. The Rwandans and Ugandans thought
that if Kabila won power, he would protect their countries by forcing out the
radical Hutu groups. | |
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| New
leader, renewed violence | |
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Kabila successfully ousted Mobutu and was hailed as a conquering hero when
he marched into the capital, Kinshasa, in May 1997. The people of newly
renamed Democratic Republic of the Congo hoped Kabilawould reverse Mobutu's years
of terror and corruption. His backers in Rwanda and Uganda also felt they could
count on the new leader to kick out the Hutu rebels.
 Within
a year, however, Kabila changed his mind and refused to force the Hutus back into
Rwanda. The Rwandans and Ugandans, realizing that the Hutu threat would now remain
along their border, abruptly switched sides and began to support rebels seeking
to overthrow Kabila.
Kabila in turn asked for support from Angola, Namibia
and Zimbabwe, all of which had interests in the vast nation of Congo. Angola wanted
to pursue rebels from its own civil war who had fled to Congo, and Zimbabwe hoped
for a piece of the rich mineral deposits in the country.
 From
1998 to 2004, troops on all sides blocked trade routes, plundered food stores,
and stopped farmers producing crops. The six countries signed a ceasefire accord
in 1999, but fighting continued.
Also during this period, Kabila, who
had come to power during a bloody insurrection, met his own violent end when one
of his body guards gunned him down in 2001. Since the assassination, Congo has
been run by Kabila's son, Joseph. | |
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| Threats
of a new war | |
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Most recently, evidence that Rwandan troops have reentered eastern Congo has
sparked concerns that the fragile peace settlement could collapse as Congo's neighbors
jump back in for another ethnic fight.
 United
Nations peacekeeping forces in the region reported Rwandan troops in Congolese
territory, suggesting an invasion had begun. Rwanda admits amassing troops
on the border to stem attacks on Rwanda from Hutus in Congo, but says its soldiers
are not in the Republic.
The Congolese government has called for the
U.N. Security Council to condemn what it sees as Rwanda's aggression, and impose
sanctions.
Meanwhile, the humanitarian crisis in Congo has been described
as one of the worst in the world, with extreme levels of hunger, disease, death,
and countless abuses of human rights. --
--Compiled by Leah Clapman for NewsHour Extra | |
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