Posted on 10/24/2009 7:44:59 PM PDT by Pan_Yan
(CNN) -- Rape has turned into a weapon of war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with the number of attacks on women having grown threefold over the past few years, human rights activists said in October.
Anneke van Woudenberg, senior researcher with Human Rights Watch, told Christiane Amanpour that 200,000 women and girls have been raped in Eastern Congo since 1998, and the condition of women has become more dire as the Congolese army has pressed a military campaign against armed groups in the countryside.
"Rape is being used as a weapon of war in eastern Congo. So we notice and we have documented that when armed groups walk into town, they will rape the women and girls, sometimes publicly, sometimes privately, in order to punish the local population," she said. "It's the easiest way to terrorize a community."
[snip]
The United Nations maintains in Congo its largest peacekeeping force anywhere in the world. But the forces have been ineffective at stopping rape.
Jean-Marie Guehenno, the former head of U.N. peacekeeping, told Amanpour that the international forces face a serious problem: Too few troops assigned to the vast inaccessible reaches of eastern Congo.
[snip]
"What needs to be done is to have a state in Congo that can control its territory and that has the confidence of the people," Guehenno said. "The violence in the Kivu, the violence in Ituri, it is the result of a vacuum, the fact that there is no administration, there is no credible state, there is no justice. And so that vacuum is being occupied by various militias.
"And, unfortunately, when the Congolese army integrates a militia without sorting between the killers and those who could be integrated, it just adds to the problem."
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
But sadly, the only hope for places like these is for someone else to move in, conquer the place, and impose order.
It has always been this way.
And it will not change until the Africans can fix it themselves.
And they can't fix it while the do gooders and other meddlers are in the way.
zero is too full of himself to see the wisdom of a colored world leader (he ain't black) taking on a black nation and straightening it out.
A very small push from the US can get African forces to do much more.
That worked quite well for Bush in 2003 in Liberia.
I meant it has always been a weapon of war ... the rape of Nan King immediately comes to mind.
That was a heartbreaking book to read. I had to put it down several times and go back to it later.
Hey Whoopy, is this rape rape?
how long before its in our neighborhood
I'm not sure how Obama could straighten out an African nation. He seems to govern like most of the leaders they have now. Heck, he helped get one of the thugs get into power.
aaah, the peaceful, fun loving ‘sun people’ showing how special they are.....
“And it will not change until the Africans can fix it themselves.
And they can’t fix it while the do gooders and other meddlers are in the way.”
Exactly...first do no harm :-)
You could drop more billions on these savages and they’d continue to rape without consequence. It was found that malee sex organ removal for rapists stopped rape quickly once it ‘got around’ that small bands of mercenaries were doing this in north Africa. Works everytime but is ‘too messy’ a businesss for the west to promote again.
Don’t ask her, this is above her pay grade.
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