I was brought up in a house where Radio 4’s Today programme was part of the daily breakfast ritual. Getting up without a dose of it now feels all wrong; like waking to find oneself upside down or under the bed.
The drawback is that my early morning dreamscapes are on occasion invaded by the worst horrors in the world. Tuesday was one of those days, and I half-consciously braced myself when I heard the presenter warn: “Here’s the first of [Mike Thomson's] four reports and be aware it contains some graphic descriptions of violence”.
If you haven’t stomached listening to the in-depth pieces from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) over breakfast, I’d recommend you visit Radio 4’s website and ‘listen again’.
Thomson’s perceptive and sensitive reporting bears witness to ongoing horrors in the DRC, which, for some reason, aren’t receiving a fraction of the media attention that they should be. Maybe it’s because the region’s problems have long since stopped being ‘news’ – the Congolese war of 1998-2003 killed an estimated 5.4 million people, and yet in the aftermath, peace deals and ceasefires have not halted the massacre and abuse of civilians by rebel militia groups like the Rwandan Interahamwe.
What makes the situation seem even more intractable is the fact that the UN’s largest peacekeeping force in the world (currently 17,000) has been stationed in the Congo since 1999, and yet has been unable to protect the 1,000 or so people who are estimated to die each day in the region.
A while back I read Adam Hochschild’s incredible piece of investigative journalism, “King Leopold’s Ghost“, an account of Leopold II of Belgium’s systematic ransacking of the Congo between 1885 and 1908, and the carnage he left behind – up to 10 million dead; rape; torture; exploitation.
This is a part of the world that has suffered in immeasurable terms. If it were a person, it would have died a million deaths, been buried deep underground and the sky would have wept in mourning. But life springs eternal even amid – and despite – great suffering. Children are being born in the Congo right now, who deserve safety and education and nurture, who with the right resources might begin the healing of their homeland. Instead so many of them are at this moment enduring the kind of experiences we only have nightmares about.
Babies as young as 2 years old are being raped. Rape itself has for some time been used as an “instrument of war” in the Congo, as reported in The Guardian late last year. In 2007 Medecins Sans Frontieres reported treating over 7,400 victims of sexual violence in the last four years. Journalist Jan Goodwin’s harrowing but necessary piece for The Nation back in 2004 focused on this horrific war crime: “In three decades of covering war, I had never before come across the cases described to me…” Goodwin writes, and asks: “…where is the international media coverage? The outrage? The demand for justice?”
Those questions still hang in the vacuum, in the deafening silence over a piece of Africa the size of western Europe.
When I asked a friend who does research into international relations why he thought the issue got so little coverage, he emailed back:
“My cynical but realistic view is that the Congo as an issue has no political or international weight at the top table, whereas Darfur gets some headlines because of its oil reserves and the influence of China, and Zimbabwe gets headlines because of its white population, British colonial history and also the influence of China. There is also the problem of highlighting the Congo because the international community is still very guilty over Rwanda, and it is the Rwandan government and army who are responsible for a lot of the strife in Congo…
The Congo is extraordinarily rich in mineral wealth, but it is not oil rich, which is one of the reasons that the international community don’t care that much.”
There are, however, individuals who care. On March 10th, a film, ‘The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo’, was shown in The House of Commons. Winner of the Special Jury Prize at Sundance 2008, the feature-length documentary made by filmmaker Lisa F. Jackson – herself once the victim of gang-rape – interviews survivors aswell as the rapists themselves, in order to drag the conflict into the light.
“In May and June of 2006 I travelled to the DRC, embarking on a voyage into a literal heart of darkness to find women who would bear witness to their own experiences and break the silence that envelops the subject of rape both in their country and around the world. I returned for a follow-up in November, and filmed chilling interviews with self-confessed, and unabashed, rapists.
I ask: Why has the systematic rape and sexual enslavement of tens of thousands of women and girls in the Democratic Republic of Congo escaped the world’s attention? Is it compassion fatigue? Racism? Is the political situation in Congo too impenetrable? Is there something about sexual violence that makes us all turn away? And, most importantly, where are the voices of the women themselves? Where are their stories?”
A reviewer in The Hollywood Reporter hoped “the film will help to end the silence“. But in a posting on HBO’s discussion board, one reader was sceptical, noting that the New York Times covered the story in November last year, and thus: “the disgusting situation has been brought to the public’s attention before in a fairly high-profile way, yet it has not received the outrage and condemnation it deserves”.
What can we do? One small step would be to sign this e-petition on the No.10 website. Its request – that the Prime Minister would “end the sexual genocide in the Congo” may seem ambitious, but at the very least, if more than 200 people sign, the government will have to respond. You could also watch the trailer for The Greatest Silence and tell your friends about it. Or if you want to donate money to some of the charities working in the Congo, go to the BBC’s list and follow their links. Any other ideas, get in touch.
