Archivo etiqueta «República Democrática del Congo»
By Charles Tannock, ECR Foreign Affairs Spokesman in the European Parliament (Project Syndicate, 15/11/11):
Free, fair, and transparent democratic elections are no longer strangers to Africa. Indeed, they have become a regular occurrence. But the presidential and parliamentary elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo at the end of November will likely be Africa’s most daunting electoral challenge so far. If the vote comes off successfully, democrats and democratic norms will receive a boost in every corner of the continent.
Geography alone in this vast and poorly connected country constitutes a formidable obstacle to conducting an election according … Seguir leyendo
By David Aronson, a freelance journalist and blogger focusing on Central Africa (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 08/08/11):
It’s a long way from the marble halls of Congress to the ailing mining towns of eastern Congo, but the residents of Nyabibwe and Nzibira know exactly what’s to blame for their economic woes.
The “Loi Obama” or Obama Law — as the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform act of 2010 has become known in the region — includes an obscure provision that requires public companies to indicate what measures they are taking to ensure that minerals in their supply chain don’t benefit … Seguir leyendo
Par Elie Elkaim (LE TEMPS, 27/01/11):
En 2010, Mike Hoffman, fondateur de l’association Vivere et infatigable militant de l’aide aux plus faibles, m’a approché me demandant de lui signer une lettre de soutien à l’action de justice qu’il mène avec une ONG congolaise.
Il me rappela que la République démocratique du Congo, cinq fois la France, comptant 450 ethnies aux deux cents dialectes, a vu sa population frappée depuis quinze ans par l’un des conflits les plus meurtriers, faisant 5 millions de morts et laissant un peuple victime de centaines de milliers de crimes de guerre impunis.
Il évoqua … Seguir leyendo
By Adam Hochschild, the author of King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa and the forthcoming To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918 (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 17/01/11):
Today, millions of people on another continent are observing the 50th anniversary of an event few Americans remember, the assassination of Patrice Lumumba. A slight, goateed man with black, half-framed glasses, the 35-year-old Lumumba was the first democratically chosen leader of the vast country, nearly as large as the United States east of the Mississippi, now known as the Democratic Republic … Seguir leyendo
By Ben Affleck, an actor and director, first visited Congo in 2008 and founded the Eastern Congo Initiative early this year (THE WASHINGTON POST, 30/11/10):
Ask many Americans to name the bloodiest war since World War II and chances are that most would not know the answer. If you told them it was in Africa, they might guess Rwanda or the ongoing conflict in Sudan. They’d be wrong.
By far, the deadliest conflict was in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1998 to 2003. Eight African nations participated in the fighting on Congolese soil, many hoping to seize … Seguir leyendo
Par Samuel Solvit, analyste en politique internationale (LE MONDE, 04/11/10):
Que ce soit la publication du dernier rapport de l’ONU ou les viols de guerres qui s’y déroulent, l’actualité de ces derniers jours nous rappelle la situation dramatique de la République démocratique du Congo (RDC). Celle-ci n’a rien de neuf. La RDC continue, discrètement mais sûrement, à être rongée par le conflit alors que l’ONU (avec la Monusco) y a toujours son plus gros contingent militaire et que la guerre est officiellement finie depuis 2002. Parmi les causes de la persistence du conflit, il y a évidemment des enjeux … Seguir leyendo
By Nanjala Nyabola, a Kenyan graduate student at the University of Oxford, focusing on the socio-political dimensions of conflict in Africa (THE GUARDIAN, 26/08/10):
There is no amount of training that can prepare you for the moment when you are in the field and a news report detailing the gang rape of nearly 200 women and four baby boys crosses your desk. Rwandan FDLR rebels and local Mai Mai militia besieged the town of Luvungi in North Kivu, along the eastern border of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The UN estimates that 154 civilians were assaulted over four days … Seguir leyendo
By Margot Wallström, the UN’s special representative on sexual violence in conflict, former vice president of the European commission and chair of the council of women world leaders’ ministerial initiative (THE GUARDIAN, 15/08/10):
What does the financial reform package recently signed into law in the US have to do with preventing mass rape in Africa? Quite a lot, it seems, but one has to search deeply within the 2,300-page document to find Section 1502, which focuses on “conflict minerals”. Conflict minerals help finance fighting and sexual violence on an unprecedented scale in the Democratic Republic of the Congo … Seguir leyendo
By Harry Verhoeven, a doctoral researcher at the Department of Politics and International Relations, Oxford University (THE GUARDIAN, 30/06/10):
Today the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is remembering the 50th anniversary of its independence from brutal Belgian rule. But its people have little reason to celebrate, despite the grandiose festivities organised by the Kabila regime.
Eastern Congo remains deeply insecure, with the internal displacement of hundreds of thousands of citizens; the vast majority of Congolese are illiterate and deprived of healthcare; and the historic 2006 elections (the first since 1960) notwithstanding, democratic space is shrinking, not widening.
As in … Seguir leyendo
Par Thierry Vircoulon, chercheur associé à l’Institut français des relations internationales (LE MONDE, 07/01/10):
Alors que le ministre des affaires étrangères français, Bernard Kouchner, entreprend une tournée africaine qui l’amènera au Rwanda et en République démocratique du Congo (RDC), la situation à la frontière de ces pays ne cesse d’être volatile. Longtemps à couteaux tirés, ces deux pays se sont rapprochés en 2009, à la suite des pressions de la communauté internationale. Ce rapprochement s’est traduit par l’arrestation d’un des principaux seigneurs de guerre de la région, Laurent Nkunda, ex-leader du mouvement rebelle tutsi, le Congrès national pour la … Seguir leyendo
By Mary Lou Hartman, a documentary filmmaker (THE WASHINGTON POST, 12/12/09):
I was just raped.
Not just, as in recently, though sometimes it feels like yesterday, but just as in only. I was only raped, not mutilated. I did not have a bottle or stick or gun shoved into my vagina, twisted to inflict maximum injury. Though damaged, I did not have my breasts lopped off, nor did I lose a limb. I was left intact, though far from whole.
I did not feel lucky 4 1/2 years ago, when I was raped, but I do feel lucky today … Seguir leyendo
By Richard Dowden, director of the Royal African Society (THE GUARDIAN, 26/11/09):
In 1995, after the Rwandan genocide, western leaders discussed plans for an armed force for Africa’s Great Lakes region to suppress the remnant of the extremist Hutu movement that had fled across the border into the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I asked a British military planner how many men it might need. About half a million was his reply.
He had studied the vast landscape, the size of France; thick forest, huge mountains, no roads or boundaries, only a few airstrips and little idea of how … Seguir leyendo
Africa Report N°151 (CRISIS GROUP, 09/07/09):
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The joint Congo (DRC)-Rwanda military push against the Rwandan Hutu rebels has ended with scant results. Fifteen years after the Rwanda genocide and the establishment of those rebels in the eastern Congo, they have not yet been disarmed and remain a source of extreme violence against civilians. While they are militarily too weak to destabilise Rwanda, their 6,000 or more combatants, including a number of génocidaires, still present a major political challenge for consolidation of peace in the Great Lakes region. They must be disarmed and demobilised if the eastern Congo is … Seguir leyendo
By Eve Ensler, a playwright and activist and the founder of V-Day, a global movement to end violence against women and girls (THE WASHINGTON POST, 30/06/09):
Just over a year ago, in answering whether sexual violence in conflict was an issue that the U.N. Security Council should take on, then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice proclaimed, “I am proud that, today, we respond to that lingering question with a resounding ‘yes!’ ” With this statement, and with the cooperation of other power brokers at the table, the Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1820, which finally recognized sexual violence as a … Seguir leyendo
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 … Seguir leyendo