Archivo etiqueta «República Democrática del Congo»

By Anna Husarska, senior policy adviser with the International Rescue Committee (THE WASHINGTON POST, 29/03/09):

“Chu-ku-du, chu-ku-du, chu-ku-du” goes the wooden scooter as it bumps along the lava-covered streets of this central African city. It’s a strange-looking contraption, like a handmade toy for grown-ups: two rubber-covered wheels connected by a board, with a steering handle atop an upside-down fork.

Even the oldest people can’t remember when and how the onomatopoeically named chukudu first appeared in this part of North Kivu, an area of eastern Congo between the north shore of Lake Kivu and the heart of the Virunga National Park. But it…

By Giles Foden, the author of The Last King of Scotland and professor of creative writing at the University of East Anglia (THE GUARDIAN, 16/12/08):

In 2001, I was in a bar in Kigoma, on the Tanzanian side of Lake Tanganyika. As I sipped my beer, I could hear the clipped tones of a South African speaking into a radio transceiver. He was ordering supplies for the United Nations peacekeeping mission known as Monuc, then operating out of Kalemie on the lake’s Congolese side. At the time, Monuc’s blue berets were just about managing to keep a lid on things in eastern…

By Michael Gerson (THE WASHINGTON POST, 12/12/08):

The HEAL Africa hospital has a feeling of newness that is rare for this part of Africa, mainly because its previous facility was destroyed by lava from Mount Nyiragongo in 2002. One building holds people with bullet wounds — shot through the pelvis, the thigh, the jaw. Another ward contains women recovering from fistula repair surgery — the quiet victims of extreme sexual violence who tend to avoid your eyes.

In another room, families whose children have congenital defects such as clubfoot and cleft lip are gathered. A surgeon at the hospital introduced my group, “These…

By Michael Gerson (THE WASHINGTON POST, 10/12/08):

The setting of this city is all contrast and drama — nestled along a vast, placid lake but dominated by a volcano that steams by day and glows faint and red on a clear evening. A city living in the shadow of sudden violence.

Driving north from Goma, one passes through wide lava fields — black, broken and sharp to the feet. About seven miles along the rutted road, the uniforms of the soldiers change, from the solid green of the FARDC (the Congolese military) to the camouflage of the CNDP (the rebel forces led by…

Por Mario Vargas Llosa (EL PAÍS, 30/11/08):

En la ciudad de Boma, capital de este inmenso país cuando se llamaba el Estado Libre del Congo y era propiedad privada del Rey de los Belgas, Leopoldo II, el señor Placide-Clement Mananga está entregado a luchar a favor de la civilización y contra la barbarie. Ésta, para él, no tiene la cara atroz de las violaciones, las matanzas, las epidemias y el hambre que adopta en otras regiones de su país, sino la del olvido. Monsieur Placide estuvo cuatro años de joven en un seminario católico, preparándose para ser cura. Pero el régimen de…

Por Mario Vargas Llosa (EL PAÍS, 16/11/08):

PIEDRA DE TOQUE. Congo, el país que recorrió el explorador británico, padeció la colonización más inhumana. Hoy, millones de personas viven allí una pesadilla cotidiana rodeados de ruina, miseria y tristeza.

El Museo se encuentra en el Monte Ngaliema, una comuna de la capital congolesa, en un terreno de las Fuerzas Armadas, y desde lo alto de esta elevación se divisa -un espectáculo soberbio- el gran río africano en todo su esplendor, con las dos capitales -Kinshasa y Brazzaville- contemplándose la una a la otra desde las dos orillas.

Allí, en el mismo terraplén erizado de frondosos…

By Simon Jenkins (THE GUARDIAN, 05/11/08):

The Guardian headline on Monday was clear as mud. It read “Stop killing in Congo or else, leaders warned”. Everything was left hanging. Which leaders? Warned by whom? Or else what? The story was that western spokesmen had warned various African leaders, albeit via the press, that they would be “held to account, or else” if they did not do what they were told. This clearly implied military intervention and there were briefings to that effect, though only a few hundred soldiers were mentioned.

The threats were from the new prophet of Blairite interventionism - David Miliband,…

By Simon Tisdall (THE GUARDIAN, 03/11/08):

Talk of sending British forces to the eastern Congo is a diplomatic fantasy – and one that could quickly turn into a nightmare. Even if well-prepared, well-equipped troops were available (which is not the case given Britain’s other involvements), a deployment would be neither sensible nor responsible without major commitments by other EU countries. As the French presidency has discovered, there is zero appetite across Europe for more African adventurism of this kind. Given the history, that is no surprise.

The highly public weekend effort by Britain’s David Miliband, France’s Bernard Kouchner, the US state department’s Jendayi Frazer,…

By Paul Collier, the author of the forthcoming Wars, Guns and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places (THE GUARDIAN, 03/11/08):

Much of my work has been on conflict in Africa, so the latest catastrophe in the Democratic Republic of Congo has unsurprisingly generated questions of the form “What now?” My buck-dodging answer is: “Don’t start from here.” We are where we are because of the persistent failure of the international community to face reality. Part of that reality is that the UN is ill-suited to a reactive mode of operations: reaction requires decisions and logistics that are usually stymied by a lack of…