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1
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- Why Should The Holocaust In The Democratic Republic of Congo Be Allowed
To Continue?
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2
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- In 1994, the international community stood by as the Genocide unfolded
and claimed at least one million Rwandans in 100 days.
- From 1998 to present, the international community has stood by as five
million Congolese died.
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3
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- According to the International Rescue Committee, the conflict and
humanitarian crisis in Congo had taken the lives of some 5.4 million
people since 1998.
- By the end of this month, 45,000 more Congolese - half of them children
- will die from hunger, preventable disease and other consequences of
violence and displacement.
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4
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- 14,200 rape cases registered since 2005 (Source: UN Office of Human
Rights).
- The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
estimates that since 2003, some 800,000 people have been displaced by
fighting in North Kivu out of a population of 4.2 million, or roughly
one in five.
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5
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6
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7
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- According to the International Rescue Committee, "Congolese women
and girls in particular bear the brunt of this crisis. Indeed, eastern
Congo right now is perhaps the worst place in the world to be a woman or
a girl…"
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8
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- The sexual violence and rape exists on a scale seen nowhere else in the
world.
- Women and girls are mutilated and humiliated.
- The nature of the violence is brutal and vicious.
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9
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10
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- Please do watch “The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo” by
Lisa F. Jackson, an American a documentary filmmaker.
- It is about "a holocaust in slow motion“ in the Congo.
- Why does the huge wave of Congolese atrocities go unreported and
unacknowledged?
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11
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12
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13
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14
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- You were instrumental in asking all foreign troops present in the
Democratic Republic of Congo to leave the Congolese soil in 2002.
- In so doing, you played a key role in bringing an end to a war that
almost engulfed the whole continent of Africa.
- You helped save lives and you spared thousands of children, women, and
men untold indignities.
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15
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- In 2003, the US government helped end the Liberian civil war.
- In 2002, the US government helped end most of the war in the Democratic
Republic of Congo.
- Today, in North Kivu and South Kivu, the war is still going on. There is
ample evidence that Rwanda has everything to do with that war. Will you
leave power without ever doing anything about the war in the Democratic
Republic of Congo?
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16
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- Why will the United Nations not help the relatively young Congolese army
disarm Rwandan rebels?
- Why should the world continue to ignore the fact that Rwanda is using
the Democratic Republic of Congo to settle its own score?
- Why should Rwanda be allowed to continue to arm and train Laurent
Nkunda’s rebel troops?
- Why not force Laurent Nkunda to give himself up and allow the people of the Kivu
region to enjoy peace again?
- Your administration knows full well that the rebel leader Laurent Kabila
used to be a Rwandan Army Officer, hence, a citizen of Rwanda.
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17
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- Are you really going to leave office and not do anything about this
holocaust despite all the power you have?
- You visited Rwanda as a show of the pain you feel about Rwanda…Why
not feel the same pain about the Democratic Republic of Congo?
- We do understand the sense of guilt that you feel about the genocide
that occurred in Rwanda. Yet, should the Congo bear the brunt of the UN
inaction in 1994?
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18
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19
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20
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- Did you say: “No more Rwanda”?
- How about 5.4 million people killed since the beginning of the
war– a number that is much larger than the genocide victims in
Rwanda and Darfur combined, larger than the victims of Iraq war, larger
than the victims of any war in recent history…
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21
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- Please do something before you leave office.
- Please show your leadership by urging the governments of Rwanda and
Congo to put an end to the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
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22
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Notes
