Georgianne Nienaber: Author. Journalist.

The Hand of a Dead Congolese Child Waving

How does one assimilate a number as hideous as 45,000 souls departing this world per month in the Democratic Republic of Congo? To make matters worse, children are only 19 percent of the DRC’s population, but they make up half of the non-combat related deaths. DRC is one of eleven countries where a full 20 percent of children die before he age of five.

       

Gorillas and the Myths

 

In January of 2007, OpEdNews was the only place in the world that printed rebel leader Laurent Nkunda’s denial of involvement in the slaughter of gorillas in Virunga National Park, Democratic Republic of Congo. Conservation organizations were falling all over themselves, pointing a collective finger at Nkunda, and we were criticized for allowing him to speak.

Several weeks later in Goma, DRC, we sat at a table with Robert Muir of the Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS) and Robert Poppe, our logistics contact, as they clearly discussed that they “had Nkunda where they wanted him.” And where was that, exactly? What in the world are British “conservationists” doing meddling in regional politics?

Now, it is the local Mai Mai who are in the cross-hairs of conservation organizations’ press releases. Consider recent mis-information that is being propagated by the mainstream press with absolutely no vetting whatsoever. The following “facts” were gleaned from press releases supplied by WildLifeDirect, the Gorilla Organization (Formerly DFGF-E) and interviews with press offers from Conservation Groups.

From Reuters to the BBC to the Voice of America to obscure gorilla discussion forums, the lead paragraph from the latest gorilla story, datelined Kinshasa, May 21, 2007, read EXACTLY the same in every venue: “Congolese militia are threatening to slaughter rare mountain gorillas in Congo’s Virunga National Park after they raided the eastern reserve at the weekend, killing a wildlife officer, officials said.”

“The attackers have threatened to kill the gorillas if the rangers retaliate and once again this gorilla population’s future is threatened,” reads the report from the Gorilla Organization.”

The mis-information gets worse.

“About 200 of the Mayi-Mayi fighters who remain active after Congo's ruinous 1998-2002 civil war attacked three posts Sunday in Virunga National Park, Wildlife Direct said in a statement. One ranger died and three were injured in the attack, said the group, which is active in the area,” writes a stringer from Nigeria, whose story was picked up by the AP.

The truth is buried on an obscure blog supported by WildLifeDirect. It is purportedly written by a ranger from the Advance Ranger Force (a conservation militia funded by WildLifeDirect), but we were told while in DRC that these blogs are not written by the rangers at all, but by a press officer. If the press officers for these organizations know the truth of the matter, where are the corrections?