Congo needs our help
November 30, 2012 -- Updated 1327 GMT (2127 HKT)
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Violence erupted in eastern Congo, creating a humanitarian crisis
- Susannah Sirkin: The international community cannot stand by and do nothing
- She says there's truth to the saying that Congo is the "rape capital of the world"
- Sirkin: The courage of the Congolese should inspire us to take political action
Editor's note: Susannah Sirkin is deputy director of Physicians for Human Rights.
(CNN) -- Some of the bravest people I know are
cowering today in eastern Congo, wondering where their supporters are.
While our daily news zeroes in on Syria and Gaza, the fiscal cliff and
Christmas sales, our friends in the war-ravaged part of the immense,
mineral-rich Democratic Republic of the Congo are once again convulsed
in a conflict they did not choose.
A resident from Goma, in
North Kivu province, who for security reasons must not be named, sent me
a heartbreaking e-mail accompanied by a photo
taken by The Associated Press' Jerome Delay. It shows a tiny girl
leading a long line of displaced women who carry enormous loads on their
backs, a look of utter desperation on her face as tears stream down her
cheeks.
The e-mail says, "This
girl is a future mother, barely four years old and she must walk many
kilometers due to the attack on her village. She cries, but who is
listening? No one takes care of her, no one to console her. Her mother
can't help because she is carrying their entire household's possessions
on her back. Just one attack on this column of displaced people and she
will find herself alone in the jungle. We only ask for peace. It's
unacceptable that we deny her the chance to grow up and become a mother
one day."
Susannah Sirkin
It is shocking how
ill-prepared the international community has been for this latest round
of violence in Africa. A leading hospital in Goma, where guerrilla
forces have been poised to enter the city for months, sent desperate
e-mails to friends around the world pleading for antibiotics,
painkillers, plaster and bandages, as international agencies focused on
evacuating their staff members from border areas. E-mails I received
showed bloody, shattered limbs of children and badly wounded patients
with expressions of horror and despair.
Become a fan of CNNOpinion
Stay up to date on the latest opinion, analysis and conversations through social media. Join us at Facebook/CNNOpinion and follow us @CNNOpinion on Twitter. We welcome your ideas and comments.
Many call Congo the "rape
capital of the world," and when you work as I have with the doctors and
nurses who have treated tens of thousands of rape survivors, it's hard
not to acknowledge some truth to this terrible epithet. For the past 16
years, armed factions supplied by Rwanda, Uganda and the ragtag and
ill-paid army of the Congolese government itself have carved up the
Congolese provinces of North and South Kivu, marauding, pillaging,
killing, abducting children to be soldiers and, yes, gang-raping women
and girls as well as men and boys.
All the while, gold,
diamonds and precious coltan ore have continued to be extracted and
exported as the people of the Kivus have suffered without electricity,
roads, schools and good government.
The single largest U.N.
peace-keeping force in the world, MONUSCO, stood by virtually impotent
last week as some 1,500 M23 rebels overran Goma. Congolese troops, many
of them hungry and penniless, ran for the hills. And while we gathered
around our Thanksgiving tables, the people of Goma hid in their homes or
fled.
Life in Goma amid crisis
DR Congo rebels make demands for exit
Congolese rebels take over Goma
For months, refugees from
North Kivu have streamed across the border into Rwanda as the rebels,
led by indicted war criminal Bosco Ntaganda, have mounted increasingly
brazen attacks on North Kivu villages. While driving across the Rwandan
border into Goma in May, I saw buses and cars loaded with families
carrying their meager possessions, once again fleeing chaos in their
country and renewed attacks by the M23 rebels. Last month when I
traveled to South Kivu, Goma was under curfew.
In Goma, people who have
bravely defended the rule of law and supported human rights for more
than a decade were terrorized into silence amid reports of targeted
assassinations and disappearances. The Goma prison emptied out mass
murderers and rapists, previously convicted by courageous magistrates in
the mobile courts set up across the region in recent years. MONUSCO
reported that it was airlifting the magistrates to safety, an ominous
sign that justice is giving way to guns.
In 2008, the
International Criminal Court accused Bosco Ntaganda of conscripting
children and called for his immediate arrest. The court's prosecutor has
stated that he is as dangerous a war criminal as the Ugandan warlord
Joseph Kony. Once again, governments responsible for setting up and
subsidizing the international rule of law have failed these very
institutions.
Meanwhile, in South
Kivu's capital of Bukavu, a two-hour boat ride across the lake,
residents prepared for the unknown. Who launched the brazen armed attack in October on our beloved medical colleague, Dr. Denis Mukwege, whose hospital near Bukavu has treated tens of thousands of rape survivors? Was this a warning shot?
Amazingly, in the midst
of the current convulsions, military magistrates in this city are
prosecuting rapes and pillaging by their own government's troops as they
defend the rule of law despite the chaos. As one of the magistrates
told me Wednesday, "It's our country, and we will defend justice here
until it's no longer safe."
The courage and
commitment to justice and human rights of our Congolese counterparts are
an incredible inspiration. Their actions must inspire not only our
admiration but our reciprocal commitment to respond with equal political
courage and whatever other resources we can bring to bear.
Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion
Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinionCOPY http://edition.cnn.com/
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário