The Blood Minerals

The country's mineral wealth has provided a cash base to fuel the conflict. In fact, two types of systematic rapes are taking place in the Congo; one is the violent rape of women and the second is the rape of the natural resources by multinational corporations with the assistance and complicity of neighbouring countries. The two types of rape are inextricably linked and feed on each other. The main armed groups that orchestrate the violence make hundreds of millions of dollars by trading in Congolese minerals; these minerals are then bought by electronics and jewelry companies.

The DR Congo is “the rape capital of the world”, a UN official has said.

Women have literally been raped to death. Many others have died subsequently. Women and girls, including babies, have been gang raped, had guns, wood, sand or glue inserted into their bodies, and had their genitals mutilated. Some pregnant women have had fetuses ripped out of their wombs so vicious that women died from bleeding or from ruptured uteruses. Consequently, many women have had unwanted pregnancies, some at a very young age. Those who survive are often left with debilitating physical injuries, such as fistula or displaced uterus, and deep psychological harm. Many cases of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases have been reported. Victims are sometimes taken into sexual slavery and then killed when their captors are no longer able to rape them (because of the victim’s injury or illness). Many women have been reduced to a state of human wreckage and non existence.

The Great Silence Despite all these hard hitting facts, the plight of the Congolese citizens is mostly ignored by the world at large. Hardly anything is said about it in the media. Can you imagine 45,000 people dying each month and hardly a peep from anyone in the age of the Internet? There is a media blackout about Congo and no worldwide resolution to end the conflict and carnage there. The international community has failed to respond coherently to this catastrophic situation. . • For 16 years to date, lobbies politico-gangster have plundered the many resources of our ground and underground, in spite of several routine denunciations by the UN which were never followed up with sanction; • For 16 years to date, forces armed of certain close countries have invaded and occupied by force our grounds, thus forcing the Congolese autochthons to flee their villages and their fields. These hundreds of thousands of men and women with their children have become like foreigners on the land of their ancestors.

Congolese government, army and MONUSCO

The state is weak and underpaid state services are often implicated in minerals smuggling along porous borders. The government doesn’t give a damn about the depredations caused in the Eastern Congo. It is an ungoverned territory. As long as the Congolese government cannot control its territory, provide basic services or effectively protect its population, and as long as armed groups are able to prosper from illicit trade in natural resources and complex regional alliances, eastern Congo will remain a battlefield and innocent civilians will pay a tragically high cost.

MONUSCO (UN peacekeeping mission in Congo) has proved unable to contain the numerous militias; Congo's weak government and corrupt army are powerless to fight Rwanda or its proxies. There have been a series of poorly planned military operations by the Government and the UN, which, while having the impressive aim of neutralizing rebel forces, have achieved far too little at a catastrophic civilian cost.

On June 30, 2010, when the government of the DR Congo was feasting with champagne and with the caviar in company of its famous guests, at the same moment, throughout the country, family fathers were deprived of their thin wages for months, women and children deprived of running water, food and electricity, and have right only to tears and moaning.

Whereas hundreds of million dollars of the Treasury were wasted for the delusions of grandeur and extravagances of a government indifferent to the misery of its people, at the same moment, in the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo, tens of thousands women, and young girls were screaming of pain because of the rapes and all kinds of exactions and humiliation that they were subjected the same day by the occupants and other criminals who came from Rwanda and Uganda.



Killings of human rights defenders and journalists

The current situation of widespread human right abuses, impunity, corruption and bad governance stems from poor legal system and a deep lack of justice and respect of human rights at the highest level of the DRC leadership, under the blind eye of the UN Security Council. Government officials have been implicated in a number of cases for harassment, death threats and killings of activists. The intimidation aims to silence individual activists, prevent investigations, and instill widespread fear amongst the civil society.

A leading Congolese human rights activist, Floribert Chebeya Bahizire, has been suspiciously murdered on June 2, 2010. Hailed as a champion of human rights, Chebeya worked for more than 20 years defending human rights in Congo. The fiftieth anniversary of the independence of the DR Congo (30/06/2010) was celebrated in mourning in the territory of Beni, Eastern Congo following the assassination of Muhindo Salvador, activist.
Who are the primary exploiters of Coltan in the Congo?

Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi and their proxy militias are the primary exploiters of coltan in the Congo. In an 18 month period Rwanda made $250 million as a result of exploitation of coltan in the Congo. Although Rwanda and Uganda possess little or no coltan, during the period of the war in the Congo, their exports escalated exponentially.

Foreign Corporate exploitation

Also, foreign multi-national corporations have been deeply involved in the exploitation of coltan in the Congo. The coltan mined by rebels and foreign forces is sold to foreign corporations. While all these Western conspiracy and criminal enterprising is going on, and as the West is busy plundering Congolese resources, Ugandan, Rwandan troops are on a slow but sure genocide of the Congolese and Rwandan refugees in the Congo. Their commercial accomplices and external quartermasters immorally sell weapons into the hands of local militias. The United States, Britain, Rwanda and Uganda, are well known to be the leading backers of warlords.

Congolese women speak out

We, Congolese women are now appealing to ordinary people of conscience throughout the globe to come to our side and join us in bringing an end to the deadliest conflict in the world. We would like to spread the information throughout the world on the atrocities inflicted to the girls and the women, for the martyrdom which they’ve endured over a decade.

We request the support of men and women of the whole world. We make a point of informing while taking the whole world as a witness of what is happening in the Democratic Republic of Congo. And to help us do this, we need anyone who can, to get behind our campaign.
Currently, in the DRC, there is an avalanche of well intentioned organisations that are coming to assist and relieve abused women. It is necessary to indicate that all these programs mobilize important funds but unfortunately the results are as tiny, as the impact is insignificant. While addressing the consequences, it is important to put in place appropriate mechanisms to act on the deep causes and to propose appropriate steps for durable solutions.

'If there is Sense of Life, then that sense can only be to stop it forever'

Victoria Dove Dimandja - Congolese Human Right Campaigner
Liberation Congolese Women Group