An epidemic of rape

[cali]

hits the Congo. From today's NYT:

BUKAVU, Congo — Denis Mukwege, a Congolese gynecologist, cannot bear to listen to the stories his patients tell him anymore.

Every day, 10 new women and girls who have been raped show up at his hospital. Many have been so sadistically attacked from the inside out, butchered by bayonets and assaulted with chunks of wood, that their reproductive and digestive systems are beyond repair.

“We don’t know why these rapes are happening, but one thing is clear,” said Dr. Mukwege, who works in South Kivu Province, the epicenter of Congo’s rape epidemic. “They are done to destroy women.”

Eastern Congo is going through another one of its convulsions of violence, and this time it seems that women are being systematically attacked on a scale never before seen here. According to the United Nations, 27,000 sexual assaults were reported in 2006 in South Kivu Province alone, and that may be just a fraction of the total number across the country.

<snip>
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/world/africa/07congo.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
Read the whole article. It's starkly horrifying. I can't begin to tell you the rage, sorrow and fear this article evoked in me.

[cali]

1. kick

because this is a story that deserves to be read.

[enough]

2. What can be the explanation for this?

From the article:

snip>

While rape has always been a weapon of war, researchers say they fear that Congo’s problem has metastasized into a wider social phenomenon.

“It’s gone beyond the conflict,” said Alexandra Bilak, who has studied various armed groups around Bukavu, on the shores of Lake Kivu. She said that the number of women abused and even killed by their husbands seemed to be going up and that brutality toward women had become “almost normal.”

Malteser International, a European aid organization that runs health clinics in eastern Congo, estimates that it will treat 8,000 sexual violence cases this year, compared with 6,338 last year. The organization said that in one town, Shabunda, 70 percent of the women reported being sexually brutalized.

snip>

Impunity may be a contributing factor, Mr. Bourque added, saying that very few of the culprits are punished.

Many Congolese aid workers denied that the problem was cultural and insisted that the widespread rapes were not the product of something ingrained in the way men treated women in Congolese society. “If that were the case, this would have showed up long ago,” said Wilhelmine Ntakebuka, who coordinates a sexual violence program in Bukavu.

Instead, she said, the epidemic of rapes seems to have started in the mid-1990s. That coincides with the waves of Hutu militiamen who escaped into Congo’s forests after exterminating 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus during Rwanda’s genocide 13 years ago.

Mr. Holmes said that while government troops might have raped thousands of women, the most vicious attacks had been carried out by Hutu militias.

“These are people who were involved with the genocide and have been psychologically destroyed by it,” he said.

Mr. Bourque called this phenomenon “reversed values” and said it could develop in heavily traumatized areas that had been steeped in conflict for many years, like eastern Congo.

snip>

[cali]

4. I don't know.

I wish I could think of or find an answer to this kind of brutality against women, but I'm stopped cold by the sheer horror of it.

[Solly Mack]

8. ...

:(

[undergroundpanther]

29. I would

Love to be hiding in wait for these rapist monsters,and shoot down the rapist shits the minute they expose themselves,blow their brains out.They do not deserve to breathe air,..Take these stupid males down with a powerful silent rifle and kill them until they all are dead every rapist piece of shit.Rapists deserve nothing but hate and death.But in this sick world too many people tolerate rape or make like rape isn't traumatic and WRONG..Sadly some men think because it's just a woman who is being harmed ,who cares.
Rape is wrong it is evil and it must be stopped.Stopped even if some men do not like the methods , they have got to get the message if they don't they do not deserve to live because their bodies are weapons, Rapists and those who excuse rape or minimize it,do not get it..A rapists perverse power tripping destroys people.. I am no christian and no pacifist,I admit I do hate certain types of personalities,the psychopath, authoritarian and malignant narcissist they cause more harm than any good things they ever do because they don't do good things,and I hate all rapists and child molesters. The world might be a little bit saner if these pieces of shit were GONE.Wish there were a way to get snipers to go over there, hide in wait and kill off the rapists caught raping in the Congo.Just kill them off.

[Sugar Smack]

3. The stories I've read about the fistulae women suffer there enrage me.

It's one of the most horrible things I've ever heard of. Congo women who are brutalized in such a manner have no control of their bowels or bladders again. The barbarians who attack these women do so much damage that these women can never walk right or feel good in their bodies again.

[Solly Mack]

11. Campaign to End Fistula (donations)

http://www.endfistula.org/donate.htm

It isn't much - and it won't stop the rapes - but it can help those so horribly brutalized.

[Sugar Smack]

15. THANK YOU for that link, Solly Mack.

Thank you.

[knitter4democracy]

5. The UN needs to step in.

I'm sorry, but a huge population is being destroyed, and that also means that there might not be a next generation from this. That sounds an awful lot like genocide to me. The victims may be left alive for now, but they're at much higher risk from infections and such and a shorter life span.

I hate to ask, but why? Why would anyone think this is okay? Why would anyone not go after these predators? Why would people know that the husband did it and not make him pay for his actions? This needs massive teams of investigators and lawyers and judges.

[seemslikeadream]

6. 4 million deaths in Congo since 1998

Anyone here use a cell phone?

Anyone here use a computer?

[seemslikeadream]

7. Congo Signs $332 Million Mineral Deal

Congo Signs $332 Million Mineral Deal

EDDY ISANGO

Associated Press


The Lost World War
Posted by seemslikeadream on Wed Mar-24-04 07:48 PM

The war on Iraq is not the only war in the world and it is not the only war being fought for our material benefit. Western consumers’ seemingly insatiable demand for mobile phones, laptops, games consoles and other luxury electronic goods has been fuelling violent conflict and killing millions in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire). By Erik Vilwar.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is possibly the most mineral rich place on earth – though this has proved a curse to the people of the Congo. The Congo holds millions of tons of diamonds, copper, cobalt, zinc, manganese, uranium (the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were built using Congolese uranium), and coltan. Coltan, a substance made up of columbium and tantalum, is a particularly valuable resource – used to make mobile phones, night vision goggles, fiber optics, and micro-capacitors.

What is Coltan?
Coltan looks like black mud, but is three times heavier than iron and only slightly lighter than gold. It is found in abundance in eastern Congo and can be mined with minimal equipment. Coltan is vital to the high tech economy. Wireless electronic communication would not exist without it. The ‘mud’ is refined into tantalum – a metallic element that is both a superb conductor of electricity and extremely heat-resistant. Tantalum powder is a vital component in capacitors, for the control of the flow of current in miniature circuit boards. Capacitors made of tantalum are found inside every laptop, pager, personal digital assistant, and mobile phone.1 Tantalum is also used in the aviation and atomic energy industries. A very small group of companies in the world process coltan. These include H.C.Starck (Germany, a subsidiary ot Bayer), Cabott Inc. (US), Ningxia (China), and Ulba (Kazakhstan). The world’s biggest coltan mines are in Australia and they account for about 60% of world production. It is generally believed, however, that 80% of the world’s reserves are in Africa, with DRC accounting for 80% of the African reserves.2

The human costs of this conflict have been horrific. According to the UN, up until last September, in the five Eastern provinces of DRC alone, between 3 and 3.5 million people had died directly because of the war. 4 Many were killed and tortured but most died of starvation and disease. The destruction of farms has resulted in malnutrition and starvation. Millions of people have been forced from their homes. Years of war have led to a social environment in which men abuse women on a staggering scale and children become instruments of war, forced to work in mines and conscripted into armed forces. Surveys in Butembo found that 90% of people were living on less than 20 cents a day and only one meal. 5

http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/newsletter/issue13/issue13_part3.htm



KINSHASA, Congo - Congo's government has signed a $332 million deal giving a London-based mining company access to lucrative copper and cobalt mines in southeastern Congo, officials said Wednesday.

America Mineral Fields Inc. signed the agreement with the state mining company, Gecamines, in Kinshasa late Tuesday, said Francois Collette, the U.K.-based company's spokesman.

America Mineral Fields said on its Web site the mine at Kolwezi in southern Katanga province could become "one of the world's largest and lowest-cost sources of cobalt as well as a major source of copper."

Congo is struggling to recover from five years of war that ended with a peace deal between rebels, the government and their foreign backers in December 2002.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/8265869.htm

Interesting that American Mineral Fields seems to have used Executive Outcomes (Private Military Company) in the past.

http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:nvBwK5fWMWoJ:www.miningwatch.ca/documents/Memorandum-final.pdf+%22american+mineral+field%22+%22+executive+outcomes%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

[seemslikeadream]

9. Wonder why Walmart has a gem counter?

Also consider that the global economy is sinking fast and some minerals are not necessarily as important as they once were.
Compare fibre optics and copper cables.
Even diamonds are losing their value.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/diamond.html

[seemslikeadream]

10. Child soldiers in Congo

Child soldiers with weapons wait for instructions in an ethnic Hema militia camp near Bunia in the Democratic Republic of Congo, June 16, 2003. REUTERS/Antony Njuguna



A child soldier practices with a machine gun in an ethnic Hema militia camp near Bunia in the Democratic Republic of Congo, June 15, 2003. REUTERS/Jacky Naegelen



Child soldiers holding machines guns look out from a window in an ethnic Hema militia camp near Bunia in the Democratic Republic of Congo June 15, 2003. REUTERS/Jacky Naegelen

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/photoalbum/1074859618.htm

[Triana]

12. Sounds to me like what our Blogger guy was advocating be done here (n/t)

[seemslikeadream]

13. A look at the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)

A look at the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) (1)

A look at the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) (2)

A look at the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) (3)

A look at the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) (4)

A look at the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) (5)

A look at the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) (6)

[Katherine Brengle]

14. He knows why they're happening, he said it himself, “They are done to destroy women.” nt

[cali]

16. But why?

How did that mindset become so viral in the Congo?

[NorthernSpy]

17. ask the Serbs...

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3693/is_199503/ai_n8724330

[seemslikeadream]

19. I'm really surprised you have to ask that question

http://www.slate.com/id/2097314/


To learn more about the camp I go to see the smartest woman in town, Petronille Vaweka, president of the Special Assembly of Ituri. Although she too has heard rumors about the camp, she doesn't doubt the women's stories. Our talk turns to cannibalism. "You can't hide it, the Lendu kill," she says. "So do the Hema, but they kill in secret. Now in this war, with drugs, they cook people and eat them like fish. No one can lie—both sides have eaten each other."

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, cannibalism has a complex history, involving a lot of rumor and imperialist myth. Interestingly enough, during colonial times, it was the whites who were believed to be cannibals. "The whites were thought to turn their captives' flesh into salt meat, their brains into cheese, and their blood into the red wine Europeans drank," Adam Hochschild writes in King Leopold's Ghost. Belgian priests, mining officials, colonial authorities—all were thought to have a taste for Congolese flesh. In Luise White's book Speaking with Vampires, one interviewee tells White that the colonialists "never managed to eat all the flesh so they saved the rest in tins, like corned beef." In the context of Congo's copper mines, the tales make practical sense. Since the rapacious white man consumed everything else he came across, he would hardly refrain from eating African flesh.

Now, in a conflict over land, gold, and oil, cannibalism as a crime of war seems to have entered the 21st century. No doubt, elements of both myth and magic both play a role in contemporary accounts. In essence, rumors of cannibalism do much the same thing as the act itself: They terrify. That terror becomes its own form of psychological warfare—a tactic to consume the enemy's power.




A charter to intervene
Posted by seemslikeadream on Thu Mar-25-04 08:16 AM

George Monbiot
Tuesday March 23, 2004
The Guardian


.......

The third argument is surely the strongest. This is that as soon as we accept that an attack by a powerful nation against a weak one is legitimate, we open the door to any number of acts of conquest masquerading as humanitarian action. As Chomsky points out, Japan claimed that it was invading Manchuria to rescue it from "Chinese bandits"; Mussolini attacked Abyssinia to "liberate slaves"; Hitler said he was protecting the peoples he invaded from ethnic conflict. It is hard to think of any colonial adventure for which the salvation of the bodies or souls of the natives was not advanced as justification.

Faced with this dreadful choice, a sort of moral numbness comes over us. To accept that force can sometimes be a just means of relieving the suffering of an oppressed people is to hand a ready-made excuse to every powerful nation that fancies an empire. To deny it is to tell some of the world's most persecuted peoples that they must be left to rot.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1175621,00.html

[cali]

25. Why are you surprised?

Although I've read Hochschild's incredibly chilling book, I'm not very familiar with what's going on now in the Congo, except for the fact that there's been a large number of deaths there over the past few years, and that the violence is horrific.

[Triana]

22. It doesn't exist only in the Congo. The Congo happens to be a place where...

..they can easily GET AWAY with it. It exists everywhere, including in the US.

[Katherine Brengle]

28. It tends to happen anywhere where the economy and government destabilize

or never were stable, and then additionally in any kind of warfare.

Rape is one of the most utilized weapons of warfare.

[Triana]

21. Right. They're simply DOING what our little internet friend was advocating

"...the feminist women (who should be executed with three shots to the
stomach each (this is a slow and painful way to die)) ...

"I hope God takes vengance upon these women and inflicts upon them a
terrible and slow demise... which is captured on a highdefinition video
camera... which is connected to the internet. I hope it surpasses the
muslim snuff videos in brutallity."


...or something similar. Either way, whatever method used or advocated, the idea is to destroy women. Only thing is, that in the Congo they can much more easily get away with it. A few laws here prevent such things happening in the US on as wide a scale. And that is the ONLY thing preventing it. Those laws need to be expanded to include HATE CRIMES against people on the basis of their sex or sexual orientation. But, as yet, our bassackwards gov't hasn't passed such a thing.

EDUCATION. PREVENTION. ENFORCEMENT.

Because THIS, folks, is terrorism. Genocide. And a few other things, wherever it happens or is advocated.

[undergroundpanther]

33. I ask

Why do people insist on tolerating people who would want them destroyed? You cannot tolerate or even be around a person hellbent on destroying you.
This is why I get angry at people who tolerate intolerable things done by intolerable personalities. Some people like these rapists in Darfur and the Congo are out to destroy women.So they need to be destroyed until they figure out destroying women will not give them power instead it will get them dead...They need to be shot Because they will not stop trying to destroy women.
You cannot live with someone hellbent on destroying you and a rapist is not a victim not when he chooses to rape someone.He is a monster.

That is why I say all rapists are worthless and unworthy of life.And should be dead because they are not safe to be permitted existence their bodies are used as weapons. You wouldn't want to be nice to a person with a loaded gun firing into crowds just to destroy people because he can do you,so why tolerate a rapist who does a similar thing but his dick is a weapon he kills with..What is the difference??
A rapist does not seek to force himself upon a person who would kick his ass or kill him ..instead like a true coward he seeks to destroy anything he can dominate and that is why a rapist does not deserve to live.IMO.The world would be better if rapists were shot.

[Sugar Smack]

43. I happen to be FOR the death penalty in such cases.

I've thought about it all day today, the suffering & brutality these women go through at the hands of sadistic, insane & evil scum like that. And I thought about your PM. I agree that these men who perpetrate this kind of harmful and sometimes fatal behavior should be put to death for their crimes.

Do you know what burns me up? The fact that people I work with DON'T want to hear it. It's genocide, and they'd prefer not to have their day marred by such ugliness. IT HAPPENS, and someone has to put an end to it. I'm going to be using Solly Mack's link.

:hug: Peace on your head, precious.

[derby378]

18. If anyone deserves to be waterboarded, it's these sick fucks

We should be in the Congo instead of Iraq.

[CrispyQ]

20. I believe we could travel the entire universe & not find a species as savage as our own.

I have no words to express my horror.

[Joanne98]

23. it's stuff like this that makes me think all the men should be shot.

For the country to survive! I know that's extreme but really.

[Triana]

24. But with that attitude, you're just sinking to the level they're at...

...and I know you know that. It's no solution.

[undergroundpanther]

34. I disagree triana

A rapist chooses to destroy someone, he is not in danger he is not being coerced he just does it because he can.

Killing a rapist is not the same thing as an unprovoked attack. Lets get clear on this difference.

A rapist chooses to rape someone he can overpower to destroy them he chooses to he is not a victim he is in the position of power over.

Killing an abuser of power like a rapist determined to destroy a person whom is no threat to him is not the same thing as what the rapist does,

I want the destroyer without a cause who chooses to destroy others destroyed so he will STOP destroying.Obviously talking it out is not going to help this situation nobody seems to be able to stop these rapists,so what is the other way to stop them,when other methods fail, you have to kill them...I want to kill him because of his choice to continually destroy others who are no threat to him.He needs to be limited he needs to be forced to stop and if other methods do not work and it seems they have not then kill the rapists.
To fail to defend the women who do not harm from those who want to destroy them is a failure of compassion and an act of ethical cowardice to be so wishy washy about about whom, are the real victims here, the women who have no way to protect themselves from these sick shit heads.

.
I get really irritated when people say shit like killing a rapist puts me at his level that is bullshit because I for one do not attack other people or desire them dead unless they are hellbent on destroying others who are in a powerless position .

It is self defense and preservation.

A rapist is in the position of power over his victims and he is choosing to destroy her.

If I kill a rapist I am destroying the destroyer who if I did not destroy him ,He would continue to destroy women..
If I want to stop the rapes I have to stop the rapists..I Stop the destruction by stopping he who destroys others without cause.


Rape is a cause that provoked my will to kill the rapist.A compassionate motive to use power for protecting the powerless.


Standing there and fearing your own anger because of the stupid myth that says killing a rapist would somehow taint your moral capacity to understand right from wrong is cowardly.

Letting a rapist live and rape again by your failure to hate who would destroy you or others just because he can get away with it,is ultimately destructive, you end up permitting his choices to rape by your misguided pie-in-the-sky ideals and misplaced tolerance.


Sometimes killing another who is out to destroy without cause IS the morally just thing to do.It might not be pretty but sometimes it is necessary in this world.After all Gandhi was murdered.Pacifism is sometimes nothing but a cruel kind of haughty cowardice that permits atrocity.I am no pacifist.

[Triana]

38. I agree with you. But what the person I replied to said was "ALL men should be shot"...

...I presumed that she meant even men who HAVEN'T raped anyone. Just all of them. For no/any reason. (the same way those rapists are destroying women for no reason).

When in that context, then we stoop to their level.

Rapists, - well, yea they - at *least* in Congo, ought to be shot. The situation there is extreme.

What they're doing over there is the same as our little internet friend was advocating a week or so ago. And the objective is to destroy women - all of them, for no reason - in the slowest, most torturous and painful way they can - for no reason.

The men who are DOING it, deserve SEVERE punishment, castration, shooting, whatever.

But our advocating shooting ALL men - guilty or innocent - just reduces us to their level.

[undergroundpanther]

35. Don't apologize for your anger

Because Rape until women's intestines are ruined and their internal organs injured is extreme. I think all rapists should be dead.
A rapist chooses to destroy.

A victim is violated,overridden and hurt by no fault of their own by these rapists until they are destroyed.The rapist is CHOOSING to destroy.

Time to destroy the destroyers and make them stop destroying if they choose to not stop on their own Someone with power has to limit the rapists to make them stop...because unless they are forced they will not stop.These rapists have NO COMPASSION they do not see these women as human beings.

So we must stop the destroyers because they have lost their humanity by CHOICE.. and will not stop until they are forced to stop.The rapists make the choice by acting out they convey the message they will not stop..until someone with more power forces
them to stop by killing them until they as a group realize they cannot get away with destroying women anymore without risking their own life ending..The rapist must have a consequence for those choices.If they have no consequence what will motivate them to stop do we have to wait until every woman and girl is raped to death by these monsters?? How is that"ethical" or Compassionate" or even just?

It's NOT.

Sometimes the correct moral response is to KILL the destroyers until they STOP.

[Liberal_in_LA]

26. tragic. n/t

[Cerridwen]

27. .

I don't dare say anything here so I'll just K & R.

:nuke:

[Tafiti]

30. Unbelievably depressing.

Those men deserve to have their balls slowly squeezed by a vise. The pain would be unimaginable, but they deserve it.

[Swamp Rat]

31. I feel sick

:(

[MrSlayer]

32. This has been going on a long time and has been posted here periodically.

And no one ever reports it in the corporate media and it never gets any play anywhere else. It is this type of bestial behavior that we should be intervening in, not invading countries to steal their natural resources and loot our own treasury. By allowing this, what's going on in Darfur, what went on in Rwanda and countless other atrocities throughout history show exactly where the priorities of this nation are, regardless of who is running it. Money first, and then maybe we'll get around to helping out some people, maybe.

Disgusting.

[Forkboy]

36. I can barely even think about the worldwide madness anymore without my brain exploding.

I remember when I was fifteen and first read about the Holocaust in detail and wondering more about the daily banality of it than the grand scope, which was horrifying enough.Did the everyday grunt who piled the bodies feel anything? Did they go home on leave or whatever and have fun with the wife and kids knowing what was going on and what they were a part of? I never was able to wrap my brain around that, even as a mental exercise.Not being religious I never thought of good and evil in terms of God or Satan, so I tried to think about what was in us as humans that can allow these things to happen.

Twenty five years later I still don't know, and stuff like this makes me think the same kind of things, with the same sense of bafflement and full disgust for what we are as a species.And I have no idea what the answer is.

[undergroundpanther]

37. I just hope it ends soon

Global warming does it's ruin and wipes the planet clear of life. It's not just humans that are so disgusting.Rape and torture happens in the animal world too.And we are but animals.

The world is a sick thing.If there is a creator it is a sick thing too.

[riverdeep]

39. As tempting as it is to write off the human race

after encountering stories like this, I'm not ready to. What is happening here is in no way natural. No culture can sustain itself with behavior of this sort. It's been mentioned that this mass, vicious and pointless rape originated in the 90's. It is not a part of their culture as standard practice. I wonder if Naomi Klein's 'Shock Doctrine' might have something to say here. With the amount of riches to be made, I wouldn't be surprised if investors had a hand in this direction. If so, it doesn't look like it needed much of a push.

The issue at hand though, is what to do immediately? According to the NYT article, the largest U.N. peace-keeping force in the world is already there, and it's not enough. Maybe the only solution is to arm the villagers? Personally, I wouldn't be against turning the mission from peace-keeping to military defense and assault, but you would probably have to kill every youngish male there. The government's corrupt troops are doing it just like the rebels.

It's all very confusing. Normally, a country rich in natural resources has an excellent opportunity to better the life of it's citizens, and here, it's destroyed it.

[Marrah_G]

40. Many of the fighters are just children who have been raised on hatred and violence

It is a view of what happens to people raised in not just war, but extreme and horrific butchering. They have lost their humanity in very large numbers.

It is one thing to see someone blown up... it is another to be fed on a constant diet of rape and machete butchery. It is a seemingly endless cycle.

It will take a couple generations of peace before this will stop happening over and over. It will take a couple generation of children who know what peace is. Right now they do not. They know either they join the fighters or they submit to the fighters or they die.

I doubt it will stop without intervention, but even intervention will be bloody.

[emlev]

41. Democracy Now coverage of this situation on today's show

Monday, October 8th, 2007
"They Are Destroying the Female Species in Congo": Congolese Human Rights Activist Christine Schuler Deschryver on Sexual Terrorism and Africa's Forgotten War


Watch, listen, read transcript at link.

[emlev]

42. What You Can Do (from Democracy Now interview)

Congolese Human Rights Activist Christine Schuler Deschryver suggests people in the U.S. who want to help get more info at V-Day

They're working on trying to get a house for women to stay in while they're getting treated at Panzi Hospital.

Also:

AMY GOODMAN: How can people help here?

CHRISTINE SCHULER DESCHRYVER: People can help me, first of all, being our ambassador, you know, talking about the problem that's going on in Congo, because it's a silent war. It's like silent. They are killing, they are raping babies and women in Congo. It's to talk about -- you know, it's like Darfur. Darfur started four years ago. I don't want to compare, you know, problems we have in this world, but Congo, it started almost eleven years ago, and nobody's talking about this femicide, this holocaust.

[Sugar Smack]

44. Kick.

:kick: