A bit serious for a Friday afternoon but it needs to be read

[Skint Gull]

Having read the recent reports on what is happening in DR Congo I find it astonishing to read what has been happening for years and is clearly still going on and yet we barely hear about it?

I was about 10 when the genocide in Rwanda happened around '94 so watching the film on it taught me a lot about what happened then and the way that the West turned a blind eye to the atrocities. So to read that 1200 per DAY are dying as a direct or indirect result of another civil war in neighbouring Congo (apparently related to the Rwandan Hutu's) is astounding and to be honest, embarrasing. I appreciate the UN has a large presence in the are but as usual they are peacekeeping forces rather than fighting forces.

I'm not going to try and pretend I know the answers because my knowledge of the area is undoubtedly very limited but I would suggest anyone who knows nothing of this should read this link and the related stories, as well as watch Hotel Rwanda, a horrifying but exceptional film.

BBC NEWS | World | Africa | 'Human catastrophe' grips Congo

 

[Trufflehound]

I'd recommend anyone to read "Blood River" by Tim Butcher. It's an excellent and honest portrayal of how the DR Congo is, and how it has effectively been allowed by the West to implode and descend into anarchy in the last decades.

 

[Arthur]

Do they still drink

 

[Fazz62]

Having read the recent reports on what is happening in DR Congo I find it astonishing to read what has been happening for years and is clearly still going on and yet we barely hear about it?

I was about 10 when the genocide in Rwanda happened around '94 so watching the film on it taught me a lot about what happened then and the way that the West turned a blind eye to the atrocities. So to read that 1200 per DAY are dying as a direct or indirect result of another civil war in neighbouring Congo (apparently related to the Rwandan Hutu's) is astounding and to be honest, embarrasing. I appreciate the UN has a large presence in the are but as usual they are peacekeeping forces rather than fighting forces.

I'm not going to try and pretend I know the answers because my knowledge of the area is undoubtedly very limited but I would suggest anyone who knows nothing of this should read this link and the related stories, as well as watch Hotel Rwanda, a horrifying but exceptional film.

BBC NEWS | World | Africa | 'Human catastrophe' grips Congo

SkintGull

Top post.

And the most current important UK media story revolves around Brand and Ross

 

[lost in london]

I'd recommend anyone to read "Blood River" by Tim Butcher. It's an excellent and honest portrayal of how the DR Congo is, and how it has effectively been allowed by the West to implode and descend into anarchy in the last decades.

Read it and loved it. I don't know if it's just me, but I picked up a message from that book that rather than it being the 'West's' fault, the Congo is incapable of helping itself Reading this morning on the train about congolese troops on the retreat raping and killing their own people, made me think that he may have been right.

 

[Trufflehound]

Read it and loved it. I don't know if it's just me, but I picked up a message from that book that rather than it being the 'West's' fault, the Congo is incapable of helping itself Reading this morning on the train about congolese troops on the retreat raping and killing their own people, made me think that he may have been right.

No, it wasn't just you. He comes to the conclusion several times that the Congolese are incapable of running their own country. But he also says a lot of the blame for that goes back to the way it was run as a Belgian plaything, and then left in a state and abandoned to its own fate at the end of the colonial era. There was no attempt by the West to help it make the transition.

 

[Skint Gull]

No, it wasn't just you. He comes to the conclusion several times that the Congolese are incapable of running their own country. But he also says a lot of the blame for that goes back to the way it was run as a Belgian plaything, and then left in a state and abandoned to its own fate at the end of the colonial era. There was no attempt by the West to help it make the transition.

My understanding from Hotel Rwanda, and from what I've read here is that the Belgians have a lot to answer for. I don't know if the divides of people within the countries existed before Belgium ruled them but it didn't appear to have.