Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Congo to Wall Street: Hey, things are tough all over.

David Seaton's News Links
I imagine that quite a few of my readers are watching the Dow Jones with trepidation these days or struggling with their mortgage or credit card payments and I thought a little news from Africa might make them stop and count their blessings.

There is this war in the Congo, you see, and it's been going on for ever so long. I'll let Wikipedia bring you up to speed:
The largest war in modern African history, one of the deadliest conflicts since World War II, it directly involved eight African nations, as well as about 25 armed groups. 5.4 million people died, mostly from starvation and disease. Millions more were displaced from their homes or sought asylum in neighboring countries. Despite a formal end to the war in July 2003 and an agreement by the former belligerents to create a government of national unity, 1,000 people died daily in 2004 from easily preventable cases of malnutrition and disease. A United Nations human rights expert reported in July 2007 that sexual atrocities against Congolese women go 'far beyond rape' and include sexual slavery, forced incest, and cannibalism.
So you can see that although we haven't been following it very closely, it has managed quite well without us. DS

Congo conflict causes 45,000 deaths a month: study - Guardian
Abstract: The effects of a decade of fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo is continuing to kill about 45,000 people each month - half of them small children - in the deadliest conflict since the second world war, according to a new survey. The International Rescue Committee said preventable diseases and starvation aggravated by conflict had claimed 5.4m lives since the beginning of the second Congo war in 1998, equivalent to the population of Denmark. Although the war officially ended in 2002, malaria, diarrhoea, pneumonia and malnutrition have continued to claim enormous numbers of lives in part because fighting continues in the east of the country. The study of 14,000 households across Congo between January 2006 and April 2007 found that nearly half of all the deaths were of children under the age of five, who make up only 19% of the population.(...) "When war destroys a country's economy and infrastructure, there's no quick fix," said Dr. Richard Brennan, one of the survey's authors. "Significant improvement in Congo's health and mortality will require years of unwavering commitment from the government and the international community and substantial financial investment. Sadly, the humanitarian crisis in Congo continues to be overlooked and funding remains disproportionate to the enormity of need." READ IT ALL

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The abuse of womens bodies in war shows just how the animal lives just under the surface. The animal attempts to disrupts the very genetic make-up of its enemy, reducing its quality or wiping it out by introducing its own.
Scientifically one may compare it competeing colonies of bacteria.

There is no salvation for such people, who first destroy reason, then soul, and then make themselves irredemable by engaging in wanton lust and blood-lust.

It makes my heart weep, and yes I am shocked, but that wont save these women, I cant, and my government wont, and thats a fact I must accept.

'Democracies' are no longer interested in what the people say. They are too busy selling guns to these perverts.

Weatern Philosophy is failing, its lofty ideals of reason, disinterested inquiry are too detached from morality, and its creating a gap between reason and feeling, in its place, blind logic, a dialectic that hopes to find Truth but its not going to find it if its not going to include feeling. Could anything be more Stalinst?