Congo-Kinshasa: Preventing Backslide Into War

[Observer_1938]

John Prendergast and Colin Thomas-Jensen
Washington, DC

Joseph Kabila, the President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, visits the White House today to discuss challenges to his country's fragile democracy. The last time a President of this sprawling Central African nation met with President Bush was 1989 - Congo was then called Zaire and the President Bush in question was our 41st president, George H. W. Bush. The ensuing eighteen years have been calamitous for the people of Congo. The current President Bush can help avert further tragedy by pressing President Kabila to abandon plans to launch a military offensive in Congo's volatile eastern provinces.

With fertile land and abundant natural resources, Congo could be an economic powerhouse and a regional breadbasket. Instead, the country is a basket-case. A brutal regional war ripped Congo apart from 1998 to 2004, and more than four million Congolese died from a destructive cocktail of violence, disease, and malnutrition.

 
Following a landmark peace agreement and a tumultuous political transition backed by the world's largest United Nations peacekeeping operation, Kabila was elected President late last year. However, elections were not a panacea to Congo's ills. More than one thousand Congolese still die each day from continued hostilities and the crippling effects of widespread displacement.



for all the story.........................

http://allafrica.com/stories/200710251318.html

[kiwi]

The U.S. should also press its Rwandan allies to take steps that encourage some of the FDLR rebels to disarm and return to Rwanda. President Kagame understandably refuses to negotiate with genocidaires, but his government knows who among the FDLR bear responsibility for the horrors of 1994. Many of the FDLR rank-and-file were under the age of 12 during the genocide, and providing better resettlement packages could induce defections, isolate the worst war criminals, and eliminate a major source of destabilization in the region.

I kinda wonder how much the death toll is. 

[Crusty]

Murder, mayhem and corruption will always be part of the fabric of life in any African country, IMO. After the project was finished in the UAE, I was given the choice of earning mega-bucks in Nigeria, or to go to Saudi Arabia. Guess what? I'm in Saudi Arabia!!!   

[kiwi]

Not much of a choice hun

[Crusty]

I feel a tad safer in Saudi!! 

[kiwi]

True enough hun.