News About Congo

Two Self-Declared Leaders Keep Congo on Edge

Although it appears to be a quiet Sunday, the situation is tense. Here in Kananga, an opposition stronghold, we have not seen the level of activity as displayed in Kinshasa.
The international community needs to intervene and mediate before more blood is shed.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/world/africa/congo-police-abducting-opposition-supporters-reports-say.xml

Police were going door to door on Saturday, taking youths out of houses in an opposition neighborhood and pushing them into unmarked vehicles, a day after the incumbent was declared the winner in a disputed presidential election here.

Police officers, with automatic weapons drawn, were also seen beating one of the young men during the roundup that took place in the impoverished 20-Mai neighborhood here. The police officers, some in uniform and some in civilian clothes, ran through the neighborhood's alleyways chasing down youths; the back of their vehicle appeared crowded with young men afterward.

The purpose of the roundup was not immediately clear. But it was testimony to the tension that persists here after the official announcement on Friday that the president, Joseph Kabila, had won re-election in this mineral-rich nation. Human Rights Watch was also receiving reports of "other abductions" in the capital, Anneke Van Woudenberg, a senior researcher for the group, said Saturday.

US names envoy for DR Congo peace

'The United States on Wednesday named a diplomat to focus on the Great Lakes region of Africa in a bid to devote more attention on bringing peace to the troubled DR Congo and its neighbors, AFP reported.
In an announcement long sought by activist groups, the State Department said it was naming Barrie Walkley, a career diplomat with long experience in Africa, to the new role of special advisor for the Great Lakes region.

Walkley will work "to ensure that the United States provides all the support we can to help the Great Lakes region fulfill its potential and become an area of sustainable peace and security," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said. '

http://www.focus-fen.net/index.php?id=n265786

Thousands flee election tension

”At least 3,500 people have arrived by boat in recent days in Congo's capital, fearing violence in the run-up to the announcement, due before midnight on 6 December, of the outcome of the presidential election in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to an official.”

This report online: http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=94406
© IRIN. All rights reserved. More humanitarian news and analysis: http://www.irinnews.org/

No SMS in Congo for Three Days Now

Mysteriously, the internet and SMS traffic came to a halt on Friday night or Saturday morning. I thought it was common and routine outage.
It was a big problem for us who follow college football and basketball.
Then it lasted in Sunday. Um!
The internet came back late Sunday night. Just in time for second games of the NFL.
Now it appears that the outage was deliberate. Still no SMS in Congo!

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/africa/central/DRC-Security-Forces-Ready-for-Possible-Post-Election-Violence--134897463.html

'As Congolese await the final results, the United Nations is urging political leaders to keep their supporters calm and refrain from disrupting the electoral process.
There is a feverish exchange of vote totals among Congolese, with many of the numbers gathered by SMS text messages, compiled, and then retexted as provincial or regional results.
But electoral commission president Daniel Ngoy-Mulunda says the only totals that matter are those to be announced by his commission, which is known as the CENI.'

Financial Vultures Circle Congo

” Britain is being urged to help close down a legal loophole that lets financiers known as "vulture funds" use courts in Jersey to claim hundreds of millions of pounds from the world's poorest countries.

The call came from international poverty campaigners as one of the vulture funds was poised to be awarded a $100m (£62m) debt payout against the Democratic Republic of the Congo after taking action in the Jersey courts.”

http://m.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2011/nov/15/call-action-vulture-funds-preying-poor?cat=global-development&type=article

Presidential Elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Presidential Elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Press Statement
Mark C. Toner
Deputy Spokesperson, Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
November 9, 2011
________________________________
The United States government condemns recent calls to violence and other incendiary speech that have recently taken place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (D.R.C.). The presidential and legislative elections scheduled for November 28 are an important milestone for Congolese democracy and should be a chance for the Congolese people to express their collective will in a peaceful and responsible manner. Irresponsible actions – such as calls to violence and the proclaiming of victory prior to the vote – undermine the electoral process and are inherently undemocratic.

We strongly urge all Congolese political parties, their leaders, and their supporters to act responsibly and to renounce violence, which has no place in a democratic process. We also call on the candidates to pledge to accept the results of a credible process. At the same time, we remind the government of the D.R.C. of its responsibility to provide a secure political space for candidates to conduct their campaigns and for journalists to report on them.

The United States government reiterates its support for its Congolese partners in efforts to conduct transparent, credible, and participatory elections in which the will of the people is expressed peacefully.

PRN: 2011/1907
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DR Congo is dead last in the 2011 Human Development Reports (HDR)

"Norway, Australia and the Netherlands lead the world in the 2011 Human Development Index (HDI), while the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Niger and Burundi are at the bottom of the Human Development Report’s annual rankings of national achievement in health, education and income, released today by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)."

http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2011/news/title,23451,en.html

Millions of Congolese children immunized against polio

Thousands of vaccination teams have traversed the vast Democratic Republic of Congo on foot, by motorbike, boat and car, in a campaign to immunize at least 14 million children against polio, the UN Children's Fund said.

This report online: http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=94070

© IRIN. All rights reserved. More humanitarian news and analysis: http://www.irinnews.org/
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U.S. troops to central Africa to help hunt down the leaders of the Lord's Resistance Army

President Barack Obama is sending about 100 U.S. troops to central Africa to help hunt down the leaders of the notoriously violent Lord's Resistance Army.

"I have authorized a small number of combat-equipped U.S. forces to deploy to central Africa to provide assistance to regional forces that are working toward the removal of Joseph Kony from the battlefield," Obama said in letter to the House Speaker John Boehner and Daniel Inouye, president pro tempore of the Senate. Obama was making a reference to the head of the guerrilla group.
"I believe that deploying these U.S. Armed Forces furthers U.S. national security interests and foreign policy and will be a significant contribution toward counter-LRA efforts in central Africa."
U.S. military personnel will advise regional forces working to target Kony and other senior leaders. The president said the troops will not engage Lord's Resistance Army forces "unless necessary for self-de
fense." Obama said the United States has backed regional military efforts since 2008 to go after the group, but these efforts have been unsuccessful. Obama notes that the Lord's Resistance Army "has murdered, raped, and kidnapped tens of thousands of men, women, and children in central Africa" and "continues to commit atrocities across the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and South Sudan that have a disproportionate impact on regional security.

Prudent Use of Abundant Resources to Spur Development

It is no secret that Congo could be the economic engine of Africa. But it is no secret that Congo is squandering it resources.

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=39986&Cr=democratic&Cr1=congo#

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has the capacity to become the driving force of Africa’s economic development if its vast forests, water resources and trillions of dollars worth of mineral reserves are used prudently, according to the findings of a United Nations assessment released today.
The DRC has half of Africa’s forests and water resources, but faces alarming rates of deforestation, species depletion, heavy metal pollution and land degradation from mining, according to the study entitled ‘Post-Conflict Environmental Assessment of the DRC’ and jointly carried out by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Government.
The country also faces an acute drinking water crisis which has left an estimated 51 million Congolese without access to potable water, the two-year assessment today in Kinshasa, by UNEP’s Executive Director, Achim Steiner, and DRC’s Environment Minister, José Endundo, shows.