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The Congolese people say their abundant mineral resources have been a blessed curse, which have bought nothing but war, violence and corruption to their country. Peace agreements for eastern Congo signed in 2007 and 2008 have been broken. All parties have committed acts of violence and abuse against civilians. This is the story of the people affected by the conflict and what they are doing to try to improve their lives.
The current conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has displaced more than one million people. Fighting between armed forces cause thousands to flee their villages and seek safety in refugee camps. The story of the Congo is complex but the effects of the on-going struggle are felt by thousands who live daily with the instability.
Producer, Helen Thomas journeys to the Mugunga II refugee camp, a few kilometres west of Goma, the main city centre in the east of the Congo. She's come to the camp with members of a local non-government organisation that helps women in the Congo.
The landscape of Goma has been scarred by the eruption of the Nyiragongo volcano seven years ago. Here at the refugee camp, cemented-lava spreads across the entire site. The refugees' huts are made of sticks and plastic and are built on a foundation of sharp stones covered only with blankets.
The fighting in the eastern Congo is affecting everyone. But girls and women are the most vulnerable here. Human rights groups say they've never found as many victims of rape in conflict situations as they've found in the Congo.
Armed forces are legally bound to stop rape and punish soldiers for such crimes but no one is held accountable here. All the armed groups, including the Congolese army itself, are accused of committing massacres, torture and rape of women and children.
The current conflict in the Congo is occurring in North and South Kivu, along the country's eastern border. It has its roots in the war of 1998 to 2003 - the largest war in modern Africa. This deadly conflict saw almost four million people lose their lives, most died from disease and starvation caused by the war. Even though the war officially ended in 2003, fighting continues and it's believed 45,000 people are dying every month.
The eastern part of the country borders Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi and this is where most of the Congo's resources can be found: copper, diamonds, gold, manganese, uranium, zinc and the world's biggest reserves of cobalt and coltan, a rare metal used in mobile phones and laptops.
Hundreds of millions of dollars leave the country from the mining of these minerals and Australian companies are among those who benefit. The irony is that despite the abundance of natural wealth found here, the Congo remains one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world.
A man who claims to be fighting for the rights of Congolese people and for the future development of the Congo, is General Laurent Nkunda. Until recently, Nkunda was leader of the multi-ethnic rebel army group, Conseil National pour la Défense du Peuple. Helen Thomas and an American journalist colleague were the last reporters to interview Nkunda before he was apparently lured into Rwanda and arrested for war crimes allegedly committed in 2004. The Congolese Government has been trying for many years to capture Nkunda and break the strong-hold of the CNDP in the east. Like everything in Congolese politics, there are many versions of the story of Nkunda's so-called arrest.
Back in Goma, Helen and her colleagues are taken to a local medical centre. Health care in the Congo is severely under-funded. This medical centre receives no funding from the government and relies on patient fees to stay open. But given that most of its patients can't afford to pay for healthcare, it's severely lacking in the medical equipment needed to offer a proper healthcare service. Patients are transferred to the government hospital for emergencies but the doctor says it also is poorly funded.
The medical centre works in conjunction with their translator Omer's organisation, the Action for the Promotion of the Midwives. The doctors and midwives work together to encourage rural women to come to the medical centre to give birth. Not only are they battling the affects of war but maternal and infant mortality rates that are among the highest in the world. AIDS decimates the country.
Omer's organisation has trained 102 midwives since it began in 2001. The midwives work in the refugee camps around Goma and travel to remote villages, often walking ten, twenty, sometimes thirty kilometres, to reach the women. They work with the constant threat of rape.
What everyone in this story hopes for is simply peace.
Helen Thomas
Lake Country Journal December 2008
Lessons From Africa
Speak For the Silent
Current Quill Magazine (Page 17)
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Cover story for November 2008 issue of TerraGreen
By Georgianne Nienaber
Congo's Angels
© 2008 Compilation (700261255507) (format: CD-R)CD price: $15.99 CD IN STOCK AT CDBABY.COM. ORDER NOW. Will ship immediately.
Women singers, songwriters, and poets join a global initiative to raise awareness about violence against 200,000 women and children in the Democratic Republic of Congo.tracks
Grammy winner Irma Thomas, country noir singer Neko Case, and pop icon Susan Cowsill join forces with noted women singers, songwriters and poets to benefit rape victims in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Contributors include Eliza Gilkyson, Caroline Aiken, Karen Protti-Bailey, Claire Holley, Kim Carson, Theresa Davis, Mary LaSang, Ruby Rendrag, Gospel Gossip, Sonia Tetlow, Herman Put Down the Gun, Karen Garrabrant, Dede Vogt, Caroline Herring, Janet Bean, and Leilani Rivera Bond
Women singers, songwriters, and poets have donated 20 tracks for this limited edition compilation CD to raise awareness about violence against women in the Democratic Republic of Congo. "Congo's Angels" is scheduled for release during Break the Silence Congo Week, October 19-25. Congo Week is a global initiative led by students throughout the globe to raise awareness about the escalating violence against women and children in the Congo and provide support. Students and community organizers in at least 100 countries and 1,000 campuses are expected to organize an activity or event in solidarity with the people of the Congo
All proceeds from the sale of "Congo's Angels" will go directly into a special account, designed to offer transparency in accounting. Friends of the Congo,a U.S. based tax-exempt non-profit, will manage this account. No monies, except minimal distribution costs, will be taken from sales.
Carrie Crawford, Chairperson of Friends of the Congo pledges, "All proceeds from Congo's Angels will raise awareness, fund independent media, and support women and girls in the Democratic Republic of Congo."
CDBABY has waived their percentage of sales from Congo's Angels as a gesture of solidarity with Congo Week. The CD manufacturer, Oasis, has given a deep discount for the production of Congo's Angels. Atlanta based Earthshaking Music donated studio and production time for the mastering of Congo's Angels. A group of emergency room doctors in Brainerd, Minnesota donated toward the environmentally friendly packaging of Congo's Angels.
1.1 million people are displaced in North and South Kivu provinces and living in unspeakable conditions in refugee camps. 200,000 women and children have been raped and brutalized. It is estimated 1,200 people die every day, and it could be stopped tomorrow with enough international will say human rights groups.
Anneke van Woudenberg, the Congo specialist for Human Rights Watch, has urged independent journalists to explore the reasons behind the violence. "Things have gotten worse in the last few months," she said. "We desperately need firsthand reports of what is happening here."
In response to his story and the plea from Human Rights Watch, women artists from the shores of Hawaii to the banks of the Mississippi Delta immediately offered the gifts of their art and song. From a Hawaiian hula master to a Grammy-winning New Orleans soul singer, and a rising Americana singer, the compilation is a celebration of compassion, love and understanding.
Disaster Capitalism and the War on Equality: Tab Benoit Tab Benoit echoes Naomi Klein's assessment in her book, Shock Doctrine, that within days of Katrina and the floods that followed it was as if private contractors had recreated Baghdad's Green Zone on the bayous.read more | digg story
Tab Benoit echoes Naomi Klein's assessment in her book, Shock Doctrine, that within days of Katrina and the floods that followed it was as if private contractors had recreated Baghdad's Green Zone on the bayous.read more | digg story
What is the Real Water Policy of the United States?By Georgianne Nienaber Huffington Post
What is the real water policy of the United States as Army Corps of Engineers' levees are failing in the Foods of 2008?read more | digg story
Day Two NCMR: Bill Moyers Saves the Day
First Published on OEN NEWS
Day Two of the National Conference for Media Reform opened with a slam/dunk speech by Bill Moyers that reminded conference goers what, exactly, is at stake for our democracy.
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"Truth" Telling vs. TRUTH Telling
There is truth telling, and then there is truth telling. Scott McClellan's contention that Bush manipulated the American public through discarded intelligence about Iraq's capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction is not a revelation of truth. It might be news, and it might be true, but it is not truth telling.read more | digg story
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“I left because my life had been devastated by the storm and its aftermath. Up until that time, for 57 years I had stayed in the city I love—and I love it no matter what—I love its people and it is where the bones of my mother and father lie. It is home.” --Cyril Neville December 13, 2007
Cyril Neville lost his home in the Gentilly neighborhood of New Orleans in August 2005 when the levees broke and hurricane Katrina’s flood waters drowned lives, destroyed dreams, and shattered hopes for hundreds of thousands. Power lines still dangle from utility poles overgrown with vines and kudzu in Gentilly, and black and blue plastic tarps snap smartly in breezes that blow through empty neighborhoods, abandoned homes, broken windows and the mean streets of 2007.
Neville told us that he has been “informally back" and trying to fix his home since October of 2005. Like many other returning residents whom we interviewed, Neville was “ripped off” by contractors, “to the tune of $19,000” in his case, and he has had all of the copper wiring stolen—twice. It is important to Neville that people understand that he hasn’t exactly been “gone” from New Orleans for the last two years.
“I left because my life had been devastated by the storm and its aftermath. Up until that time, for 57 years I had stayed in the city I love—and I love it no matter what—I love its people and it is where the bones of my mother and father lie. It is home,” Neville wrote in an early morning email to us. “Home” was capitalized and underscored.
Cyril Neville is part of the “heartbeat” of New Orleans, but his own heart is heavy. He knows the despair and vulnerability experienced by the displaced. Neville is one of 200,000 people who have not returned full time to New Orleans, and wants to show his solidarity with those still besieged with uncertainty, indecision, and fear. Neville may have resettled in Austin, Texas, but he misses the old neighborhood, the ability to get up in the middle of the night and drive to the market for a Hubig’s Pie, and the convenience of walking a few blocks to visit family and friends. Quite simply, Cyril Neville misses the neighborhood.
Anyone who has followed New Orleans politics since Katrina understands why Neville has been hesitant to come forward about recent public housing controversies and conflicts. Comments he made in interviews and in print about the way local, state and federal governments failed to respond to the needs of the displaced drew fire from many quarters, and Neville has been reluctant to take a public stand since. However, truth prevails with time, and human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, have issued statements that vindicate Neville and indict rescue and reconstruction efforts in New Orleans as being too little and too late—slow at best—and wrought with malfeasance and racism at worst.
“I think it's important that the people involved in this struggle know that I stand with them and that the song I speak of here is a rallying song for this monumental movement. After all, I am a charity hospital baby from the Calliope projects, born and bred in the bricks,” Neville said in a statement.
The song Cyril Neville wants the world to hear is called The Projects. He insisted that we link to it here. “Born and bred in the bricks…we played with toys, not guns, and there wasn’t much dope.”
The lyric reminisces about growing up in “the bricks,” watching his brothers play music, and enjoying their youth. It is the recollection of a grown man facing today’s grim realities of life in New Orleans.
I love New Orleans, I love my culture, and I love my country,” Neville told us pensively.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has underscored the “struggle” Neville speaks of with plans to demolish the four largest public housing projects in New Orleans on Saturday. If officials at (HUD) have their way, bulldozers will rumble through Lafitte, St. Bernard, C.J. Peete, and B.W. Cooper (Calliope)—drowning the sounds of bullhorns and protesters that are sure to greet them. Gentrification will destroy the heart and soul of New Orleans; Neville knows it, and wants to say so publicly.
Despite the fact that 200,000 residents, of all colors, are still displaced, HUD is authorized to spend $762 million in US taxpayer funds to tear down 4600 public housing apartments and replace then with 744 units. The math is easy. Where are the rest of the families supposed to go who occupied the 84 percent of the housing units that will not be rebuilt? Neville is convinced that the loss, through depopulation, of the “gumbo” of New Orleans will leave an empty, soul-less shell of “urban development”—a city designed and planned for the wealthy.
Where will the displaced poor live? No one seems to have answered that question, but they will not be in New Orleans, since the 1000 “market rate” apartments that are slated for construction will cost $400,000 each.
Calliope was home to 1,400 working class African-American households before the floods of August 2005. Many—perhaps a majority—were headed by women. The brick project sprawls over almost 60 acres and contains 1,546 individual dwellings. Calliope is noteworthy for its status as the largest tenant run housing development in the United States. It is also infamous for violence, murder and drugs in recent years.
The story of Calliope has played out over the other projects slated for demolition and it is no wonder there is a sense among the displaced that the City of New Orleans is using the “shock doctrine” of disaster capitalism to depopulate low income housing, thereby making room for new development. After Katrina’s floods scattered the poor throughout the country as so many seeds in the wind, the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) posted paper notices saying residents were not allowed to move back. In a twist of linguistic irony, HANO hired the Las Vegas firm “Access Denied,” to install 16 gauge steel plates over windows and doors at Cooper and other projects. The excuse for this largesse was “protection” from looters and thieves. Reports in the Times-Picayune and other local publications quoted residents who said robberies occurred with key access and that thefts happened AFTER Mayor Ray Nagin urged people to return.
Jill Soffiyah Elijah, the deputy Director of the Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard Law School, went far beyond condemning gentrification. “It is our view that the US Government has committed crimes against humanity, particularly in relation to its failure to maintain functional levees that should have protected the City of New Orleans,” Elijah said in summary statements after hearing 30 hours of testimony given by hurricane survivors and experts in August 2007.
Racial discrimination, vigilantism, and violations of human rights involving the rights to adequate housing and education were the most egregious findings of the international tribunal. Among others, the ACLU of New York, the Mississippi Disaster Relief Coalition, and the National Lawyers Guild joined representatives from nine countries at the hearings.
Affordable housing, jobs that pay a living wage and quality healthcare and education are constant hot-button issues post-Katrina. Amnesty International southern regional director Jared Fuer has gone so far as to state that "To demolish affordable housing without sufficient remaining low-income housing stock is not only irresponsible, but a violation of international human rights standards."
Kali Akuno of the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund charges studies prove that flood survivors with home insurance have not received compensation or aid. Rents and utilities have increased, while wages remain the same. Rentals once priced at $600 to $700 have increased on average to about $1,600. Restoration of the infrastructure in hard-hit neighborhoods such as the Ninth Ward, Gentilly and Gretna is lagging and in some places non-existent. Many homes are facing winter without water or gas service.
Cyril Neville quotes from the book, The Second Battle of New Orleans by Liva Baker, and lists A.P. Tureaud as one of his heroes. Tureaud was a black Creole lawyer who peacefully but relentlessly fought for civil rights and integration in Louisiana. The subtext of the iconic reference to the 100 year effort to integrate Louisiana’s schools as the “Second Battle of New Orleans,” can certainly be applied to the current reconstruction crisis. The Second Battle of New Orleans is being waged this week and Cyril Neville thinks that heroes like A.P. Tureaud “are what New Orleans needs today.”
To drive the point deeper, Neville quoted James A. Colaico’s book, Frederick Douglass and the Fourth of July Oration, "When the happiness of some is pursued to the detriment of others, the general welfare standard of the Preamble (of the Constitution) is violated.”
On the twelfth day before Christmas the Constitution will be tested, and New Orleans will face a decidedly different future if bulldozers roll through the projects as scheduled.
Georgianne Nienaber has been an investigative environmental writer for more than thirty years and wrote a column for the Rwandan New Times. She lives in rural northern Minnesota. Recent articles have appeared in Africa Front, The United Nations Publication, A Civil Society Observer, AllAfrica.com, ZNET, SUN NEWS, TERRA GREEN, and Zimbabwe's The Daily Mirror. Her fiction exposé of insurance fraud in the horse industry, Horse Sense, was re-released in early 2006. Her biography of Dian Fossey has received critical acclaim in the Midwest and in Africa. Nienaber recently worked on the Coleen Rowley for Congress campaign, doing press and campaign events and just returned from Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. She was in DRC as a MONUC-accredited journalist.
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