Posted on 04/09/2003 9:19:28 PM PDT by dufekin
It began as just another day in the village of Drodro. But the seething ethnic hatred that too often burbles under human flesh in this part of central Africa twisted its way to the surface yet again last Thursday.
Amid the verdant hills and emerald forests that cloak much of Congo like a hot velvet blanket, someone reportedly blew a whistle. And a killing party began. On cue, armed soldiers and civilians -- men, women and even children -- took up machetes and hacked their neighbors to death.
In a span of three to eight hours, nearly 1,000 people were massacred, the United Nations has confirmed. In a nation increasingly known for ethnic cleansing and astonishing violence, this was the worst single atrocity in the 4 1/2 years of civil war that have ravaged the former Zaire, according to a U.N. spokesman.
That's quite a feat, considering that this war and its associated problems have already claimed the lives of 2 million people.
Just one question: Did you hear about it?
My guess is, probably not. As a regular reader of African news, I had to dig through the world press just to find five stories on the incident. And this comes on the heels of a two-week killing spree in Congo last month that left hundreds more dead, and after particularly gruesome reports of ethnic cannibalism there last year.
How can the murder of nearly 1,000 innocent people, sliced to death in a few hours, go unnoticed in the age of constant news bombardment?
Simple. We're all too busy logging onto CNN.com's ``War Tracker,'' channel surfing among the shouting heads on primetime television, or answering meaningless online polls to notice. The big satellite channels report the news, certainly. But as businesses, they also focus in on the stories they think viewers want to see, almost to the exclusion of all else.
The result: All war in Iraq, all the time. And this week, if it ain't in Baghdad, Basra or Baqubah, chances are viewers won't see it.
Fair enough, to a point. When our neighbors and loved ones are slugging it out in Baghdad, and the global stakes are so high, no one can blame Americans for wanting to watch or read stories on Iraq.
But inattention to a crime of the magnitude in Congo raises several issues.
One, I wonder if the lowly machete, which also took the bulk of 800,000 Rwandan lives in 1994, shouldn't be classified as a weapon of mass destruction. When you compare that death toll with the 103,000 souls who perished in the atomic blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a compelling case can certainly be made.
Two, the world doesn't pick and choose its problems for our viewing convenience. Our almost exclusive focus on Iraq doesn't mean that worse things aren't happening elsewhere. The irony is that with inescapable 24-hour news, we seem to have less variety in stories and far-ranging reporting than we did 10 years ago.
Three, the public is poorly served by a passive examination of news, a blind acceptance of editors' and network honchos' decisions about what is and isn't newsworthy, and what does and doesn't deserve our attention. Awareness of horrific events like the one in Congo last week provides a context for understanding and comparison the next time a politician tells you Americans need to oust Evil Dictator X or launch an attack on Country Y.
And four, one of the rationales for attacking Iraq that resonated most with Americans was to prevent Saddam Hussein from killing and further terrorizing innocent Iraqis. To underscore the point, the Bush administration dusted off ghastly, 15-year-old photos of slaughtered Kurds.
But we need to think about why some lives -- Kurds, Kosovars, Iraqis -- are worth American attention, tax dollars and political capital while others are not. Be assured that the rest of the world is asking that question.
The United States may not have a strategic or economic interest in Congo. But after the Iraq war is finished, it will be in our interest to return to President Bush's original vision of a powerful but benevolent America.
And while invading Congo is certainly a bad idea, willingness to rally international attention to the carnage there is not. Otherwise, Americans ignore some atrocities and act on others at our own moral and diplomatic peril.
(Excerpt) Read more at pilotonline.com ...
Because according to the late Francois Mitterand, "In a country like Rwanda, a genocide isn't that important." I hope Francois is rotting in hell.
DAMN STRAIGHT!!!
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