Playwright fights for Congolese women

NF Reporter · 08-23-2007, 09:10 AM

AP - Eve Ensler has just returned from hell. That's how the author of "The Vagina Monologues" describes her trip to Congo, where thousands of women have been sexually attacked and mutilated in the African nation's civil war.

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waltky · 03-29-2008, 12:18 AM

Peace deal falls through...

Congo militia suspends peace process participation
Fri Mar 28, 2008 - A shaky 2-month-old Congolese peace deal plagued by delays and daily ceasefire violations faced additional uncertainty on Friday when a major eastern militia suspended its participation in the process.

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PARECO, a faction of the Mai Mai traditional warrior militia and one of the principal armed groups to sign a Jan. 23 deal, said it was withdrawing its delegates in a dispute over the composition of commissions set up to monitor the peace process. "We have decided to pull out," PARECO spokesman Theophile Museveni told Reuters.

He said special ordinances signed last week setting up the commissions favoured the government and PARECO's traditional enemies, renegade Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP). "We saw that the government is very much represented. We saw that the CNDP was very much represented. And us? ... There was cheating," he said.

He did not give the group's demands or conditions for an eventual return to the process. The United Nations and Western governments brokered the deal in the hope of establishing a lasting peace in Congo's turbulent east, where rebel and militia violence has persisted long after the formal end of a 1998-2003 war in the central African state.

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waltky · 09-26-2008, 04:13 AM

Gizenga steps down...

Democratic Republic of Congo Prime Minister Resigns
25 September 2008 - The prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, veteran independence leader and former rebel Antoine Gizenga, has resigned.

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Congolese Prime Minister Antoine Gizenga announced his resignation on national radio. The 83-year-old leader said although his spirit was healthy and willing, the human body had its limits. He added that the task of rebuilding the country known as Congo/Kinshasa was immense after decades of misrule, rebellion and civil war, but he said the country was beginning to recover.

An analyst with London's Chatham House, Munong Kodi, says there had been rising criticism of the Gizenga government. "A lot of people thought there was not effective coordination and vision on the part of the government," he said. "That's the main reason why people wanted change."

Gizenga was appointed prime minister by President Joseph Kabila nearly two years ago following national elections aimed at ending years of dictatorship and civil war. The veteran politician was a deputy to Congo's first prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, following independence and served briefly as prime minister.

But he joined a breakaway government in Stanleyville, northeastern Congo, after Lumumba was dismissed and subsequently assassinated. At the height of the cold war, this government was recognized by nearly two dozen governments.

More VOA News - Democratic Republic of Congo Prime Minister Resigns

waltky · 10-11-2008, 04:54 AM

Tryin' to avert another African war...

U.N. urges Congo-Rwanda talks to avert war
Fri Oct 10, 2008 - The United Nations urged Congo and Rwanda on Friday to hold talks to avoid a war after Kinshasa accused its eastern neighbour of sending troops over the border to back Congolese rebels.

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U.N. peacekeepers in Democratic Republic of Congo are investigating the Congolese allegation that Rwandan army troops this week crossed into North Kivu province to help insurgents led by renegade Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda. Rwanda has denied the accusation but Congo has asked the U.N. Security Council to hold an emergency meeting on the alleged incursion. The war of words has stoked fears of an escalation of Nkunda's rebellion into a wider conflict between the two Great Lakes neighbours, who have fought in the past.

U.N Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was following the situation on Congo's eastern border with "increasing concern," spokeswoman Marie Okabe said at U.N. headquarters in New York. "The continued fighting between the (Congolese army) and the National Congress for People's Defence (CNDP) of Laurent Nkunda add to the suffering of the civilian population and risks provoking wider conflict in the region," she added.

Ban appealed to both sides to cooperate in implementing an immediate cease-fire and "to bridge their differences using diplomatic and other peaceful means available to them." In Kinshasa, Alan Doss, head of the U.N. mission in Congo (MONUC), said the U.N. was working to stop the conflict escalating. "We all have to do all we can to lower tensions and find ways to renew a constructive dialogue," he told Reuters.

At 17,000-strong, MONUC is the world's biggest U.N. peacekeeping mission. The force is checking if Rwandan army regulars are inside North Kivu. Doss told Reuters this was not easy in a porous, volatile and geographically rugged border area where ethnic lines are blurred. Nkunda's rebels wear Rwandan uniforms and speak Kinyarwanda, a language used on both sides of the border.

ETHNIC TENSIONS

waltky · 10-22-2008, 01:51 AM

Women speak out against atrocities in Congo...

Woman: 'They wanted to destroy my body and spirit'
October 21, 2008 -- Activist says a new type of war is being fought on the bodies of women; Congo war is bloodiest since World War II, UNICEF says; Rape victims try to turn "pain into power"

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Eve Ensler can't find the right words to describe what she's seen and heard. "Obscene. Horrible. Out of control...." The activist tosses out a cluster of angry words, trying to describe what is, in some ways, indescribable. She talks about a woman being gang-raped by 15 soldiers. Some violated with sticks and knives. Cannibalism. She has returned from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where thousands of women and girls have been systematically raped during a 10-year war that some say has cost more lives than any other war since World War II.

"It's 'femicide,' " Ensler says, using another word to describe the treatment of Congolese women. "It's the systematic destruction of women. It's an economic war fought on the bodies of women. It's the destruction of the Congolese people and life itself." Ensler and others are trying to stop the gruesome attacks against women by launching a series of campaigns that pivot on what Ensler says is a debatable premise -- people will care what happens to dark-skinned Africans.

The centerpiece of Ensler's campaign is "The City of Joy," an all-female village in Congo where rape victims can recover from their physical and psychological wounds. Other groups such as UNICEF have mounted similar efforts to empower Congolese women and encourage the world to act. The world's reaction has been muted so far and Ensler, best-known as the playwright of "The Vagina Monologues," says she knows why. "A lot of it is flat-out racism," she says. "When we see conflicts that involve white people, the world responds faster. Bosnia is a perfect example."

More Woman: 'They wanted to destroy my body and spirit' - CNN.com