News About Congo

IU Junior Credits Oprah for Her Involvement in Congo

Here are some fellow Hoosiers involved in Congo.  Giving Back to Africa (GBA) developed a Congolese Fellow program for students who agree to work in rural Congo.

IU junior aims to aid Congo through campus group

In central Africa’s Democratic Republic of Congo, ongoing violence perpetuates rape as a weapon of war and one in five children will die before their fifth birthday.

At Indiana University (IU), however, and seemingly a world away, junior Dani Walker is attempting to create change for these people.

Walker single-handedly created the Giving Back to Africa student association, and is president of the organization. She also balances a 30-hour work week between waiting tables at Bloomington’s Village Deli and babysitting.

As a junior in high school, Walker caught a glimpse of what was happening in the DRC through The Oprah Winfrey Show.  

“One, I couldn’t believe this was going on and that I have never even heard about it, and two, it was going on and nobody was doing anything about it,” Walker said.

Violence and Tax Evasion Plague Congo

The illegal "mining industry" has hurt people of eastern Congo.  Millions have been died.  Hundreds of thousands of poor persons have been displaced.

The legal "mining industry" has hurt people throughout the Congo.  Millions of dollars of taxes have not been collected.  These taxes could address the widespread poverty in the country.

Mining Companies Deprive Africa of Millions in Lost Revenue

Mining companies routinely deprive African countries of huge amounts of tax revenue that could be used to combat poverty, a new report reveals today.

Breaking the Curse: How Transparent Taxation and Fair Taxes can Turn Africa’s Mineral Wealth into Development highlights the methods mining companies use to pay as little tax as possible. These include:

• Forcing governments to grant tax subsidies and concessions by threatening to go elsewhere if they are not forthcoming
• Insisting mining contracts signed with governments remain secret. Some governments, also anxious the contracts are not held up to public scrutiny – are happy to oblige.

• Using the secrecy surrounding contracts to pursue aggressive tax avoidance strategies.

• In at least one country, the Democratic Republic of Congo, (DRC), there have been allegations of corrupt politicians awarding illegal tax exemptions to mining companies in return for private gain.

• False accounting used, the report alleges, to enable companies to artificially depress profits in countries where they operate to evade tax.

In DRC, a 2007 World Bank document said: ‘fraudulent practices by companies and government agencies have created a gap [between] what should be paid versus what is actually what is actually recorded as having been received in terms of royalties and surface rents alone.  The gap is larger if total mining taxes are considered: about US$200m per year should be generated by the sector.’ That year the government claimed to receive only US$13m in taxes from mining.

 

The report has been jointly published by ActionAid, Christian Aid, Third World Network Africa, Tax Justice Network Africa, and Southern Africa Resource Watch.

ActionAid is an international anti-poverty agency working in over 40 countries taking sides with poor people to end poverty and injustice together. 

Sarkozy Proposes an European Union for the Great Lakes Region

The leaders of Congo (DRC), Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi stand at the most crucial point in their history since decolonization in 60's.  Will they continue to squander resources and business opportunities?

Congo would get lasting peace accord while its neighbors would get a "legal" piece of the pie.  Share!

Behind President Sarkozy's Africa Trip

French leaders have always been more frequent visitors to Africa than their Western peers, but President Nicolas Sarkozy looks set to eclipse them all in trips to the continent. On Thursday, Sarkozy began his fifth African sojourn in less than three years with a trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a violence-plagued Central African nation that of which most Western officials steer well clear. His goal? To sell his ambitious plan economic cooperation aimed at bring peace to some of the region's embattled countries — and in the process restore French influence in Africa.

Given the mix of altruistic and self-serving motives, it's not surprising Sarkozy's trip is inspiring as equal measures of hope and suspicion. The French president kicked off his three-nation swing through the Great Lakes region in Kinshasa, where he praised President Joseph Kabila for reaching agreement in January with leaders of neighboring Rwanda to launch joint military operations against militia groups fighting both regimes from strongholds in eastern Congo. The result, Sarkozy noted, has been an a halt to the massacres that have forced tens of thousands of civilians to flee the area. (See pictures of war and displacement in Congo.)

Sarkozy emphasized economic development and cooperation as the key to cementing the peace, reiterating an earlier proposal that the DRC, Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi pursue agreements to share resources and pursue joint development of their energy, transport and telecommunications infrastructure. The region's prospects for peace, Sarkozy said, would be greatly boosted by creating a "single market" similar to that of the European Union.

"Structured cooperation brings the certainty that everyone will benefit," Sarkozy said in a speech to the DRC's parliament. "Why not provide more momentum to something already advancing? Why not go even further?"

A Cell Phone Captures Scenes from Kinshasa

You get a unique view of Kinshasa from a youth pulling a Cardboard Car with a cell phone mounted in it.  I think this is just the start.

Cell phones help filmmakers reveal unseen Africa

Resourceful African filmmakers are using cell phones tell their stories in spite of political censorship.

Kiripi Katembo Siku, an art school student from the Democratic Republic of Congo is one such director who shot his first film using only a mobile phone.

The ingeniously devised "Voiture en Carton" ("Cardboard Car") provides a rare glimpse of street-life in Kinshasa, the country's capital, while highlighting the lengths filmmakers must go to in circumventing the eye of the law.

While the country's name implies freedom of speech, filmmakers in the country's capital are restricted by government censorship.

To get around these problems, Siku came up with a novel plan.

He attached his mobile phone to a toy car, set it to film, and gave it to a young girl to pull behind her on a piece of string as she walked through the streets of Kinshasa.

The film runs for seven minutes, during which time the toy car stops and starts (it also upends a number of times and has to be righted by Siku's young camerawoman) giving viewers a clandestine look at life in the capital -- the dancing feet of children, some teenagers gambling, and at one point a United Nations jeep passing by.

Support The Cell Phone, Computers, and PlayStations USE TAX

Would you impose a personal use tax for use of your cell phones, computers, and PlayStations?

You can select or design your own use tax to be paid.  For example, each day or week you use your cell phone, computer, PlayStation, deposit ten cents (or any amount) into a piggy bank, then donate the money to an organization working to help or end the suffering in Eastern Congo. 

Or you may do one of the things suggested by Ellen Hagood (below) on a weekly or monthly in lieu of financial donations.  Or you may do both.

The Rape of a Nation

The death, destruction and rape of Congolese women and children is indisputably the hideous extension of the rape of Congolese vast natural resources so we can have cell phones , computers, and PlayStations  (mineral = coltan) while an unethical few via our tax dollars make megabucks.

Reads like the movie, “Blood Diamonds,” doesn’t it? But in the case of the DRC, there’s much more money to be made and many more “actors” involved.  Instead of just diamonds, the DRC possesses the mother loads of a wide diversity of minerals vital to the “innards” of a multitude of high tech. toys/equipment. 

In an attempt to gain control over DRC’s minerals, (i.e. coltan, DRC possesses 80 percent of the world’s supply), U.S. tax dollars, along with the tax dollars of unsuspecting citizens in other developed countries, have been used for the past 12 years and are currently being used to:
    a. perpetuate the brutal rapes of women and children in the DRC, women as old as 80, children as young as 2.
    b. fund the deadliest conflict since World War II with over 6 million people dead, half of them children under the age of 5.
    c. contribute to the deaths of 45,000 people each month, which is 5 1/2 times greater than the tragic losses that have occurred and continue to occur in Darfur.

What we can do:
1. Ask local newspapers to publish a series of articles about the holocaust in the DRC. (Beware of subsequently published information. Some articles would lead us to believe the crisis in the DRC is just another example of “savage Africans killing each other due to ethnic rivalries.”)
2. Sign the petition developed by Africa Faith and Justice Network, a highly respected Catholic Missions organization that supports the citizens of DRC. (www.afjn.org)
3. Use the toll-free number (800) 828-0498 in Washington, D.C., to call congressional representatives and demand the U.S. immediately hold a hearing on the holocaust in the DRC.

"Women and War: The Effects of Conflict on the Women of the Congo"

Find your way to keep the pressure on Congolese leaders to resolve this conflict and recognize the ongoing human rights offenses affecting its people - especially women.

Crisis in the Congo contributes to plight of women

This Monday, Amnesty International presented "Women and War: The Effects of Conflict on the Women of the Congo."

In conjunction with the Women's Resource Center (WRC), Amnesty International hosted Brinton Lykes, professor in the Lynch School of Education, and Marina McCoy, professor in the philosophy department, in a discussion of the political, social, and psychological ramifications of rape in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) as well as in other countries.

Malak Yusuf, a leader of Amnesty International and A&S '09, said that the organization has continued to promote sexual violence education through their program "Stop Violence Against Women," and subsequently, it was only natural for the Boston College chapter to become involved in the Concerned About Rape Education (CARE) Week proceedings. In past years, Amnesty International at BC has focused their events on female homicide in Mexico and education for Afghani women and children but chose the crisis in the Congo largely because of its scale and importance.

"The BC chapter of Amnesty International wants to highlight this little-known growing crisis in the DRC - with hopes of encouraging students to become informed and write letters to our senators and representatives to put pressure on Congolese leaders to resolve this conflict and recognize the ongoing human rights offenses affecting its people - especially women," Yusuf said.

Congo's Parliament Speaker Gambled and Lost

Mr Kamerhe, Congo's Parliament Speaker, gambled, lost, and now he is gone.

I can imagine him betting that the Rwandan army would never leave Congo.  They were invited for a joint operation.  The last of the Rwandan soldiers returned home on Sunday.

I had reservations, too!

Congolese assembly speaker quits

The Democratic Republic of Congo's parliament speaker has quit after criticising the decision to let Rwandan troops enter the country in January.

Vital Kamerhe had said the president should not have allowed them in for a joint operation against rebels.

Mr Kamere was under pressure from his own party, the People's Party for Reconstruction and Democracy, which is also President Joseph Kabila's party.

The speaker was reportedly applauded as he announced he would stand down.

Sarkozy Proposes A Bold, New, Lasting Peace Plan

French President Sarkozy has proposed a BOLD new plan!  It has merit.  He proposes that Congo share its mineral resources with Rwanda, Burundi, and Uganda in return for lasting peace.

WOW, effectively there would be no reason to fight! 

Sarkozy seeks peace role in Africa

President Nicolas Sarkozy will on Thursday try to carve out a peacemaking role for France in central Africa by urging the Democratic Republic of Congo to consider sharing its vast mineral resources with its neighbours.

Mr Sarkozy will hold talks with Joseph Kabila, the DRC president, in Kinshasa to persuade him to back a controversial plan to put mines in the east of the vast country under some form of supranational authority, with resources shared with neighbouring Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda.

Paris is keen to press for a long-term solution to battles for the control of natural resources, which have fuelled inter-ethnic conflict and destabilised much of central Africa.

Should Rebels Be Granted Amnesty?

Where is the justice for all the thousands of people affected by rebel?  Women have been raped.  Children forced to serve in rebel armies.  Men have been killed because they were men.  Hundreds of thousand of people were forced to leave their homes.

Amnesty should not be offered to rebel groups.

Kinshasa Agrees to Grant Amnesty to Rebels

Residents of North Kivu province have welcomed a signed agreement between Kinshasa and the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP) that paves the way for the rebel group to transform itself into a political party. The agreement signed Monday provides for the Tutsi rebels transformation into a political body and the release of former members of the rebel group captured by government forces. Kinshasa also agreed to pass an amnesty law for the former rebels and integrate them into various state security agencies. Desire Kamanzi is the chairman of the CNDP rebels and a signatory of the agreement with the government.

"What we have come up with mainly are that we talked of amnesty and the government expressed its commitment to give amnesty to everyone who has been engaged in fighting the war starting from 2003 up to today. And we also have an implementation plan of everything that we have come up with including the return of refugees and the internally displaced. We also have a program of integration of CNDP police into the government police, and there are different other things that were discussed," Kamanzi noted.

Uganda's Withdrawal Signals to A New Era in Cooperation

The complete withdrawal of Ugandan and Rwandan troops from Congo is a success in itself.  It is a successful operation even if rebel attacks had occurred again.

Uganda military completes DR Congo withdrawal

Ugandan military has completed its withdrawal from northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where it has been hunting the rebels of the Lord Resistance Army (LRA), the military spokesman said here on Monday.

Capt. Deo Akiki, the former spokesperson of the joint military operation by DRC, southern Sudan and Uganda told Xinhua by telephone that Uganda had pulled out all its troops by Sunday.

 

"As per now, we don't have any more troops in DRC. Our last contingent left DR Congo on Sunday," he said.

Uganda's Chief of Defense Forces, Gen. Aronda Nyakarima, handed over the last station held by Uganda People's Defense Force (UPDF) on Friday to Congolese army, who is to carry out the operations against the LRA rebels, he said.

"The withdrawal was not premature. We accomplished our task. We have now opened a new chapter of handling the enemy at regional level," Akiki said echoing the army's defense on the outcome of the operation.

"We registered a lot of success during our operations against the LRA in DRC. "We now leave the operations to DRC and MONUC," said the UPDF spokesman, Maj. Felix Kulayigye.