The recent Civil War in Congo has been a bloody flight, causing more then 3.3 million deaths in just 4 short years.1 Various rebel and ethnic groups have have been involved in the violence, fighting over Congo's rich natural resources or engaged in a bitter ethnic war. With so many opposing factions, it has made reaching a solution difficult. While a rough peace treaty has been established, sporadic fighting pops up in the country everyday. The people of Congo are being pushed farther into poverty and starvation can't handle the fighting for very much longer. I propose that the solution to the post-Civil War violence in Congo is to rid the country of all foreign nations and their problems, namely the Rwandans, and to get combatants inside of the country to hold a summit and find a peaceful and fair resolution to the problem, with a superpower like the United States acting as host and mediator. Once all quarrels are amended, the Congolese can start to focus on a economic strategy for rebuilding the country.
Congo's Civil War began on November 2nd, 1998 when Laurent Kabila tried to drive out Rwandan militants who helped him overthrow Mobutu Sese Seko.2 Sese Seko came into power in 1966 when he led a rebellion to overthrow the government of Patrice Lumumbra. Sese Seko led to Africanizing of the country by requiring that all citizens drop their Christan names, and by renaming all the geographical locations with more African names.3 During the 1980's Sese Seko's government received support from the United States, in response to communism's rising popularity in Africa. Because of the misuse of the funds and wealth generated by natural resources, the rich got richer and the poor fell farther into poverty. Sese Seko abused Congo's natural resources and eventually helped lead the country into a state of economic ruin. In 1997 Sese Seko was overthrown by Laurent Kabila. When Kabila took over the country it was in terrible condition but he did nothing to try and improve the state of the nation. When he tried to expel the same Rwandan rebels that helped him come to power, he started a war that eventually led to his death. Many various ethnic and rebel groups inside of Congo who relied on the Rwandans for protection joined the uprising.4 Africans inside and around Congo chose s...
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... Farah, Global Insights. New York: Macmillan McGraw-Hill School Publishing Company, 1994.
Endnotes
1 “Quick Guide: DR Congo,” BBC News. Updated Mar. 07 2005. BBC News, Accessed 06 March 2005,
2 “Congo Civil War,” GlobalSecurity.Org. Updated Feb. 11 2005. GlobalSecurity.org, Accessed 06 March 2005
3 “Mubutu Sese Seko,” Encyclopedia. Updated 2005. Infoplease, Accessed 06 March 2005,
4 “Congo Civil War,” GlobalSecurity.Org. Updated Feb. 11 2005. GlobalSecurity.org, Accessed 06 March 2005
5 Ibid
6 Ibid
7 Ibid
8 Ibid
9 Ibid
10 “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” Conflict in Congo, PBS, October 22, 1998. Transcript. Accessed 06 March 2005
11 Garten, Jeffrey E, “Don't Just Throw Money At The World's Poor” BusinessWeek, March 7, 2005. 12.
The writer behind “Singers Solution to World Poverty” advocates that U.S. citizens give away the majority of their dispensable income in order to end global suffering. Peter Singer makes numerous assumptions within his proposal about world poverty, and they are founded on the principle that Americans spend too much money on items and services that they do not need.
One can easily note the physical and sexual violence brought upon the people (black and white) of Congo after independence, but we must locate the other forms of violence in order to bring the entire story of Patrice Lumumba to light. The director’s attempt at bringing the story of Patrice Lumumba to the “silver screen” had political intentions.
Meece, Roger. U.S. Department of State: Diplomacy in action, "Democratic Republic of the Congo." Last modified Nov 04, 2013. Accessed May 10, 2014. http://www.state.gov/outofdate/bgn/congokinshasa/40495.htm.
...trage about violence in the Congo, Belgian administrators took a census in 1924, as they were concerned about the shortage of available workers. The same year, the official committee of the National Colonial Congress of Belgium declared: “We run the risk of someday seeing our native population collapse and disappear,” that the Congo state would be nothing more than a desert without the native population.
... aid across the world. As we have established that we do have an obligation to redistribute globally in a cosmopolitan perspective, distributing wealth however we may need to rethink what the best assistance is. Amaryta Sen conveys that before sending aid to the third world state, we would need to fully understand the limitation of freedom in the country. Redistributing wealth to global countries requires it to be evaluated by the economic shortage that they are suffering and to see whether it will be efficient in the long run. The more effective ways to contribute would be to international relief agencies or NGO’s that would pursue international development projects to help those in poverty or the alternative option by Tom Campbell’s idea of a ‘Global humanitarian levy’ which suggests a more appropriate taxation on all citizens to collectively aid those in need.
...erpetrators. This sort of weakness in their government is what ruins attempts to prevent atrocities and protect civilians. With this much to fix on their plate, they need to start getting help from other countries and providing help of their own in order to fix the state it’s gotten into and help its people. Because they mistreated the M23 rebels and did not stick to the promises that they made in the peace treaty, they caused them to rebel again and intern damned their people. With a suffering army and government state they are useless in stopping the rebels. The Congolese government needs to get help with from neighboring countries in order to fix some of their piling problems. They need to start assisting the groups that are helping their civilians dealing with the violence and charging those perpetrators responsible for the heinous acts against the population.
Singer, Peter; Miller, Richard "“What Duties Do People in Rich Countries Have to Relieve World Poverty”." Debate, Singer-Miller Debate from Center for the Study of Inequality and the Atlantic Foundation, Ithaca, April 4, 2003.
Packham, Eric S. The U.N. Intervention in the Congo After Independence. Nova Science Publishers, Inc., 1998.
Since the late 1800’s, almost all of Africa had been under European colonial rule, but this changed drastically in 1960. Sixteen African nations gained their independence that year, including the former Belgian Congo, which became the Democratic Republic of the Congo on June 30. One of the key personalities that made this possible was Patrice Lumumba, who experienced widespread support in gaining independence and became the first Prime Minister of the DROC. However, he lost much of this support once he was in office, and lasted fewer than 200 days. Lumumba’s ability to communicate was a key reason for his success and failure.
... attention allowed economic exploitation in the Congo and its people devastated by human rights abuses, and even today the lack of international attention has caused many conflicts in and around the Congo. The economic exploitation of the Congo during colonial times robbed the country of wealth which could have been used to develop the land, and the lack of wealth has contributed to Congo’s poor standing in the world today. Lastly, the human rights abuses in the Congo Free State contributed to economic and political troubles during the colonial period and has continued into the present day, as human rights abuses are still prevalent in that region of Africa. Due to the lack of international attention, economic exploitation, and human rights abuses, the Congo Free State was harmful to the Congo region of Africa and its legacy continues to harm that region of Africa.
Prior to 1960, Belgium and their King, Leopold ruled the Congo region. They held great interests in the rubber industry and created harsh labor camps that exploited the people. That is why after gaining independence in 1960, the nation then known as Zaire plunged into chaos. Military unrest coupled with oppressive warlord throughout the region made it a very unstable state, ready to collapse. Nowadays, U.N. peacekeeping forces hold posts in the nation to maintain its stability. The United States has had foreign relations with the country from 1960 and has signed many treaties to help promote growth in the region. One such document is the Peace, Security and Cooperation framework that exists between the United States and the Democratic Republic of the Congo as well as 10 other African nations. I believe that The Peace, Security and Cooperation framework definitely helps to promote the United States best interest in the DRC due to access to oil, prevention of military destabilization in the region as well as benefits from African businesses.
Over a period from 1960-1965, the first Republic of the Congo experienced a period of serious crisis. There was a terrible war for power that displayed senseless violence and the desperation to rule. There were many internal conflicts among the people. The country eventually gained independence from Belgium. For many countries this would be a time for celebration. Unfortunately for the people of the Congo this became a time to forget. Almost immediately after independence and the general elections, the country went into civil war. Major developed cities like Katanga and Kasai wanted to be independent from the Lumumba government. Different factions started to fight the government and Katanga and Kasai tried to secede from the rest of the country out of fear of the mutinous army that was out of control looting and killing.
In Africa there have been many wars and problems with poverty as well as famine that lead to war. One specific war was the civil war in Congo also known as The Great War of Africa. The war in Congo lasted from August 1998 to July 2003 and left thousands of people dead or injured. The war started because of issues in the DRC which stands for the Democratic Republic of Congo. The war was a long and terrifying war that ended when the transitional government of Democratic Republic of Congo took power. Africas unfriendliness has continued with the Lords Resistance Army Insurgencies and The Kivu as well as Ituri conflicts. The civil war in congo has made a huge impact on the people of africa and how they live today.
When engaging in a foreign territory, the local cultures contribute to how forces must operate. A population’s culture is “a web of meaning shared by members of a particular society or a group with in a society.” (FM3-24) In a nation like the Democratic Republic of Congo there is a wide variety of culture in the different regions, however, the unifying theme is a culture of survival and oppression.
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has had a long history of bloody conflict, civil war, and western exploitation dating back to 1885 when King Leopold II of Belgium brutally exploited the country for rubber. Agents of King Leopold II would storm a village, hold the women hostage until the men reached a quota of rubber. When the men left in search of the material, often for days or weeks, dying of exhaustion in the process, the women were raped and starved (Adam Hochschild, 161). Since that time the DRC has been caught in a cycle of continuous exploitation of natural resources by more developed countries. The DRC is caught in the political science theory called resource curse. Resource curse states that a developing country with a high amount of natural resources is at an increased risk for civil war and doomed to slower development because of political corruption, lack of economic diversification, and failure to invest in human capital (Nadira Lalji,