africawinsagain...
Posted on 01/22/2008 5:43:48 PM PST by The Pack Knight
DAKAR, Senegal - Some 45,000 people die each month in Congo as the world's deadliest humanitarian crisis has failed to improve despite five years of relative peace in the Central African nation, according to a report released Tuesday.
An estimated 5.4 million Congolese died between 1998 and April 2007 because of conflict, most from the rampant disease and food shortages stemming from fighting, the report said.
The study found that life is still alarmingly precarious for Congolese despite the end of the 1998-2002 conflict that pulled in armies from half a dozen surrounding countries, and the country's first free and fair elections in more than four decades in 2006.
"When war ended in Congo there was the same level of dysfunction without the violence," said Les Roberts, a Columbia University professor who helped conduct the first surveys in Congo with the International Rescue Committee.
The study was conducted by the IRC and Australia's Burnet Institute, which researches epidemiological disease.
Congo's monthly death rate of 2.2 deaths for each 1,000 people — essentially unchanged from the last survey in 2004 — is nearly 60 percent higher than the average for sub-Saharan Africa, according to report.
The vast majority of deaths were from nonviolent causes, such as malaria, diarrhea, pneumonia or malnutrition, the report said. Outbreaks of easily treatable diseases like measles and whooping cough have been a major killer of children in Congo, a nation the size of Western Europe.
The group The figures cast a shadow over ongoing negotiations for a peace deal between warlords and the government in Congo's long-volatile east.
The country's hilly eastern region, long the source of turmoil in the country of 66 million and still plagued by fighting, was one of the few to post a decrease in its death rate compared with the previous survey.
Richard Brennan, one of the study's lead authors, said he believed the reduction was related to a beefing-up of U.N. forces in the region and increased funding by humanitarian agencies working to stem the threatening public health disaster. The fighting has forced some 800,000 people to flee their homes in the last year.
On Monday, the government and representatives from armed groups active in eastern Congo had said that they had agreed in principle to the deal to end decades of conflict and expected to sign the document by late Tuesday.
But the plan faltered during discussions over last-minute amendments that dragged on into Tuesday evening.
"The consultations will continue because there have been disagreements concerning amendments to the text," said Sekimonyo Wamagangu, a spokesman for the conference. He said the groups hoped to find a compromise Wednesday.
According to a draft agreement made available to reporters, a cease-fire would take effect in eastern Congo immediately upon signing.
The draft also provides for a U.N.-monitored buffer zone between various armed groups and government forces, the logistics of which would be worked out by a technical committee to be established.
The militia fighters also would be given amnesty from prosecution for insurgency or acts of war, but not for war crimes or crimes against humanity.
Even if the deal is signed, and held to, the statistics point to a tough road ahead.
"It's going to require years of engagement from the Congolese people, the Congolese government and the international community," to reduce deaths, Brennan said.
___
Associated Press Writer Eddy Isango in Goma, Congo contributed to this report.
It's good to keep things in perspective, sometimes.
africawinsagain...
Where’s the UN? Where’s George Clooney?
Seriously though..time for regime change.
They always write these articles as if it’s our problem. It’s not our problem, it theirs. Why is it the international communities problem? They have had these problems for years and years. Until they organize they’ll never get rid of the problem.
They haven’t figured out how to blame it on Bush without blaming it on Clinton at the same time. They’re working on it, though...
F*** Congo, Thompson just dropped out, perspective people. I give a crap what happens in my country first. We’re responsible for what we allow to happen in our own countries. I’m a tad too busy fighting for my own Constitution.
maybe you can sign up with ron Paul
he doesn’t seem to care what happens outside this country
Actually the Global Warming people should be cheering this. Less people are good for the planet, don’t you know?
If this were happening in the US, I’m sure that there would be millions of Africans jumping into their “droves” and driving over here to help us! /s
Bite me lonestar. People are responsibile for themselves. Like I said before, I’m a tad too busy worrying about my own country. Perhaps if people gave a crap about their own home, there wouldn’t be so much going on.
By perspective, I merely meant “Glad I don’t live in the Congo.”
The secular regressive socialist moonbat hypocrat U.N. enablers will on the one hand say we shouldn’t get involved in everyone’s affairs...but with the resources a superpower has...ummm...well we SHOULD get involved in everyone else’s affairs!
Looney Clooney bashed Condy and W for Darfur exclaiming we should intervene, but I guess Iraqis don’t meet the exact same smell test since it wasn’t the looney one’s idea...???
And this has to be W’s fault.
Or Israel’s.
lmao doc, I’m sure they’d be “clawing at themselves” to get on over here to help the USA!!! If you have no pride or will to fight for yourself how can you expect everyone else, aka USA, to run to your defense? Especially once we do, you knock us for it?
Heck, glad as crap I wasn’t born there either!
I kid you not, many PETA people, vegans...and yes the global warming loons and various other tree huggers will just shrug it off.
CO2 is a pollutant according to these moonbats. Now if we could only convince them that mass suicide is their only logical way out!
Meeting in Belgium in some gtand hotel built on riches obtained from the Congo a century ago while discussing why this is all America's and George Bush's fault?
Just a guess, mind you. ;~))
It’s not really a shortage of food, it’s inability to harvest and transport food due to violence. Same as Somalia and Ethiopia.
I guess I just don’t understand why they dont band together and fight these thugs. That’s all they are is thugs.
Pity ‘bout Africa.
sorry to kick you when you are down
This can’t be true. Everyone knows that people only die in Iraq... except for people with AIDS...
I don’t think you’re sorry at all, so save it.
“I guess I just don’t understand why they dont band together and fight these thugs. That’s all they are is thugs.’
Because the thugs are semi organized and take all the food, rape all the women, and kill any men that don’t run fast enough. They also ban firearms except for everyone except their group. These folks have absolutely nothing with which to resist.
Refusing to provide any aid is not a mark of a civilized person. There were times the US needed the assistance of others. Thankfully someone responded.
And when exactly were those times when we needed someone to help us to stop OTHERS raping our women?? Who the hell came to our aid??
“They” can’t band together. The overwhelming majority of the Democratic Republic of the Congo lacks communications infrastructure, a semblance of identity on most scales, and semi-decent roads even in the dry season. The people of the eastern Congo, home of most of the violence, inhabit small, widely separated villages and clan shacks amid complex terrain of a dense tropical rain forest or jungle. This territory boasts some particularly nasty tropical diseases, insects, and other vectors of disease not well-known to Western medicine. The Belgian colonials left a wretched legacy there and in their other colony, neighboring Rwanda, and spread the most barbaric indigenous practices throughout the Congo while enslaving the populous and destroying previous tribal identities.
So we have many badly disorganized bands of thugs brutally torturing and killing villagers of hunter-gatherers and small-scale farmers. The surviving inhabitants of these villages flee into the swampy terrain, where their cuts get infected and they lose their food supplies. Because the bands of thugs are so widespread, poorly communicative, and disorganized, we really can’t negotiate effectively. Because the Congo lacks infrastructure, we also can’t identify, isolate, and defeat them. It’s an anarchic society that might reorganize on a feudal scale with the benefit of some infrastructure.
“Who the hell came to our aid??”
As hard as it is to admit the French did a long long time ago. And then there are numerous countries helping us now. Without which we would be in much greater trouble.
Globalism isn’t the answer but neither is isolation.
So what you’re saying is, that they’ve reverted to what was happening before the Belgians engaged in mass genocide a century ago?
...while sipping tea. Hahahaha.
africa is DEVOLUTION in action... one would think that the "Cradle of Man" would be the MOST advanced part of the planet seeing how they had the most time to get there and all. but as you see...
Neither is nation building. Want to donate some of your hard earned cash to charities that supposedly help these regions, be my guest. But under no circumstances should taxpayer dollars be pissed away for “compassionate” purposes in that sinkhole nor should our fighting men and women have their lives be put at risk because of some inane tribal hatreds dating back to when Jesus walked the earth.
No, I liked Fred Thompson and was disappointed he dropped out.
I probably don’t agree with you about Congo but I do think Fred was a good candidate.
In many ways, they haven’t returned to that level of cultural advancement. Before the Belgian atrocities, the Congolese generally maintained strong tribal identities that they now lack, and most did not practice the levels of barbarism now commonplace. Insofar as I can tell (which isn’t much, but you asked), pre-Belgian Congo featured perpetually warring tribes with levels of warfare and economic prosperity similar to those of 12th-century Europe without the civilizational qualities. Incessant warfare then probably affected fewer people less frequently.
We live in a former British colony, and like most former British colonies, our society features many great elements drawn from British legal and philosophical traditions. The Anglophone world consequently stands atop the nations of the world in most positive qualities. The former French colonies of the world are notoriously corrupt dictatorships, especially those without significant British influence. We also have former Portuguese, German, Spanish, and other colonies. But the Belgians bequeathed the world a couple of its most notorious hell-holes: the Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi, the latter a somewhat lower-profile, less explosive version of Rwanda.
Sounds like a fair summary of the situation to me.
I go back to Kipling, who deserves to be in this thread:
Take up the White Man’s burden—
Send forth the best ye breed—
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives’ need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild—
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.
etc.
I see no reason for the USA to expend blood and treasure in the Congo.
I am conservative but I sure as hell am not gonna get all outraged should this country send a few dollars to help build wells to provide clean water, routine childhood immunizations and few Mr. Kimballs to give advise on crops and livestock. I even cross my fingers that we would lobby hard for a return of DDT. Heck gather up a few dozen yard of mosquito netting too.
Do I think private charity should do the lion’s share? Of course. But we are being stupid if we think these conditions do not have a bearing on the US. They certainly do.
For people living in these conditions the absurd rantings of terrorists, despots and warmongering mad men soon sound sane. I think the US should help. Out of her own self interest if for no other reason.
errata
Provide routine childhood immunizations and few Mr. Kimballs..
This can not be happening — now that Africa is free of the dastardly white man and evil colonialists...
Africa is now FREE - and under “Home Rule” -— Africa is now “managed” by Africans.......
To criticize the state of conditions, is a form of disrespect for their “culture” —— and we all know all cultures are equal..
Right?
I'd guess while smoking a joint or snorting some coke, but that is just my impression of the UN jet set.
Tea just isn't cool enough for them.
Accurate from my understanding of the Colonial period as well. If you were going to be a Western European colony, the Belgium's were probably the worst you could be inflected with. They took everything they could grab, and left nothing behind. They didn't suffer from the 'white mans burden' syndrome. It was smash and grab.
On the other hand, the Brits while being altruistic did much long term damage with the free Marxist 'education' they dished out to the 'darkies' at places like Oxford and Cambridge. Moscow central could not have done much more damage to Africa as the Brits did with their mis education programs.
Then there was the French Sorbonne which produce some very well spoken and sophisticated tyrants like Pol Pot and Uncle Ho who killed millions and could justify it via extensentialism.
Shows what happens when 20th century coffee shop philosophy actually gets applied in the real world. ;~((
bad news...the peace agreement they signed last week is over. They're back to fighting again. Well, they can always try for peace next week. Hey, it'll be a new month, February the month of LOVE
Where’s the Congo?
And if Hillary or Obama gets elected... 
they will all be put onto the voter rolls as Democrats!
I’m still looking for a country like the one depicted in Eddie Murphy’s movie:’Coming To America.”
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