[AfricaRealities] Fw: *DHR* Obama can end the violence in the DRC – if he has the will

 

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From: "agnesmurebwayire@yahoo.fr [Democracy_Human_Rights]" <Democracy_Human_Rights@yahoogroupes.fr>
To: Democracy_Human_Rights@yahoogroupes.fr
Sent: Friday, 8 August 2014, 8:37
Subject: *DHR* Obama can end the violence in the DRC – if he has the will

 

 

 

"Three elements to achieve this should be, I believe:

• Mandate the UN intervention brigade, which defeated the M23 rebels last October, to flush out the FDLR militia.

• Push for a government of national unity in Kinshasa, without Kabila. This is the only remedy to the crisis of governance and legitimacy in that country.

• Create an International Criminal Tribunal for Congo – the only reasonable step to end the culture of near total impunity for perpetrators of violence, which is the glue that binds together the criminal network behind the problems engulfing the region.

These steps can only be secured by the US; no one else has the clout. And failure to sway, or force, Kabila to agree to these measures at the US–Africa summit taking place in Washington or in months that follow would have terrible consequences – particularly on Congolese women.

Surely for Obama, this is not such a complex moral problem to grapple with?"

 

A Vava Tampa (Save the Congo) analysis - theguardian.com

Congo conflict is perhaps the only one in the world which is relatively easy and affordable to solve. With both Kabila and Kagame in Washington, now is the time

Those with a taste for detail may cite 27 January 2013 as the day when Barack Obama – without having to say so explicitly – underscored his seriousness to bring the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo to an end.

It was that day, asked by a journalist why he hadn't yet acted to end the ongoing war in Syria, he explained how he personally, morally wrestled with questions about the violence in that county before concluding: "And how do I weigh tens of thousands who have been killed in Syria versus the tens of thousands who are currently being killed in the Congo?"

For those of us who had campaigned for actions to end the Congo conflict, it was an important moment. The loss of human lives in Syria, like in Congo, is an ongoing tragedy. But unlike Syria, where a campaign of indiscriminate bombing has killed more than 140,000 civilians, in Congo the violence is different.

Instead of using explosives, lives are destroyed through a systematic and pervasive use of rape to punish women, humiliate their men, destroy families, displace communities and to send an ominous message to any potential enemies.

Statisticians say Congo's death toll in the first 10 years of the wars was more than 5.4 million. An estimated 1,100 women are raped every day and 1,500 people die.

Unless something is done to stop this, millions more will die from the ensuing HIV/Aids pandemic, at least partly triggered by the use of rape as a weapon of war.

 James Kaberebe was the de facto leader of the M23 militia responsible for much of the violence, the US was one of several countries to suspend aid to the Paul Kagame regime in Rwanda.

John Kerry chaired a high level UN security council summit on Congo, and Senators Russ Feingold and James Swan, both of whom have the president's ear, were appointed as US special envoy and ambassador to the Congo respectively, to reenergise peace efforts.

And when further evidence of Rwanda's continued support to warlords and militia groups emerged, Obama personally urged Kagame to stop supporting the rebels.

Yet none of this has helped. Not because warlords or militia groups in and outside the Kabila regime in Kinshasa have learned practical means of avoiding or resisting US pressure, but rather because although much has been said by the Obama administration no substantive action has yet been taken.

US strategies have been, at best, passive and focussed on juggling competing and at times incompatible alliances in the region, when it is quite evident that left to themselves neither DRC's Joseph Kabila nor Rwanda's Paul Kagame will willingly end this conflict.

Kigali has too much to gain financially from the chaos in DRC, and Kabila's government is illegitimate, incompetent and too weak locally to push and implement policies and politics that could end the violence.

Yet the DRC conflict is perhaps the only one in the world which is both easy and affordable to solve – if the US had the will: Joseph Kabila is no Bashar al-Assad and there is no powerful Iran in region or Russian veto at the UN Security Council.

Saving the Congo begins with the simplest of points: addressing the crisis of governance and legitimacy in Kinshasa, the common denominator to all that continues to go wrong in that country.

 

Obama can end the violence in the DRC – if he has the will

			Obama can end the violence in the DRC – if he has the wi... Analysis: Congo conflict is perhaps the only one in the world which is relatively easy and affordable to solve. With both Kabila and Kagame in Washington, now ...
			Afficher sur www.theguardian...	Aperçu par Yahoo

 

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Envoyé par : agnesmurebwayire@yahoo.fr

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Posted by: Samuel Desire <sam4des@yahoo.com>

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