The Congo: A Hidden Terror That is Not Our Top Priority
By Mary MacElveen
July 14, 2006
In an article written for The Nation, Jan Goodwin in her article, Silence=Rape asks in the last sentence of her article, “we can only hope that a similarly prominent group of today's social commentators will find its conscience and its voice soon.” As a social and political commentator, I will speak out.
As I have seen the images coming out of Iraq showing dead and injured Iraqi men, women and yes children, often words hit you more in the gut than images do. They linger as each word is read, and it horrifies you to have these words converted into images as your brain tries to process it. It literally tears you apart from the inside knowing that your fellow man is capable of doing the most despicable things.
It truly disgusts you as you read that these despicable acts are being done to children as young as three years old. The acts that I speak of are rape and sodomy. If you are a parent of a child as young as that, imagine if that were your daughter? How would you feel if the world turned a blind eye to the plight of children just like her? Yet, that is being done in the Congo.
While I am not an award winning journalist like Jan Goodwin, I am a human being who has been given a podium on my blog as well as several other web sites to voice my opinion. While I have never traveled to the Congo, just reading Ms. Goodwin’s words makes me angry that we in this country can send forces into Iraq based on lies, and cannot see fit to send forces into the Congo to stop the rape of innocent women and children. Where is their liberation as they continue to suffer the most depraved acts known to man?
I was horrified to read in this article, “Van Woudenberg, the Congo specialist for Human Rights Watch. So, too, has mutilation of the victims. "Last year, I was stunned when a 30-year-old woman in North Kivu had her lips and ears cut off and eyes gouged out after she was raped, so she couldn't identify or testify against her attackers. Now, we are seeing more and more such cases," Process that in your brain.
As we have read of some rape cases being discussed in the news in Iraq at the hands of US soldiers, we are not hearing of rapes such as the ones mentioned in Ms. Goodwin’s article. Since these heinous acts are not being reported by the mainstream press, they must not exist. Well they do. The Nation’s articles do not get the media focus as the little tiff between Barbara Walters and Star Jones and the media should be ashamed of themselves for ignoring this story. Ms. Goodwin is correct when she asks, “Yet where is the international media coverage? The outrage? The demand for justice?” I thought that the media changed after Katrina when you saw reporters such as Anderson Cooper visibly shaken to the core, but the news cycle changes as quickly as someone clicking the buttons of their remote control.
If Ann Coulter thinks that liberals are “Godless”, let us be real as you read this passage, “I had never before come across the cases described to me by Congolese doctors, such as gang-rape victims having their labia pierced and then padlocked." They usually die of massive infection," I would call this one of the most Godless acts known to mankind. As Coulter spews her hate towards liberals or those with a conscience, the true Godlessness can be found in the Congo. As she reaches into her darkened soul wishing death to those in the New York Times building, she rages on against those of us who will ask just where our government is to confront these vile acts.
On June 29th Congressman Ron Paul of Texas and Congressman Walter Jones of North Carolina spoke of the Iraq War in which I mentioned in a previous editorial that their speeches were not witnessed by every single congress member. I guess the full congress did not see that as being worthy of their time to show up. I wonder if they would show up to hear what is written in this passage of Ms. Goodwin’s article, “30 percent of rape victims are sexually tortured and mutilated during the assaults, usually with spears, machetes, sticks or gun barrels thrust into their vaginas. Increasingly, the trigger is being pulled.” Or are they out on the campaign trail raising war chests for their upcoming campaigns?
I have been to a few fundraisers, hearing the back slapping speeches that really say nothing as a member of both parties and left feeling empty in my soul. I guess I was not made to play party politics when I hear of crisis issues such as this. I know if I were to approach any candidate running for any office no matter what party they belong to; I would ask them, just what are they doing to raise the awareness of this issue as they travel around making stump speeches.
Would they have the temerity to say, “Folks put away your wallets to fund my campaign in which I only attack the other side and send that money to organizations such as Doctors without Borders”? I guess that is wishful thinking and naïve of me to even think it. No, greed feeds the beast of party politics.
Right now, Bush is meeting with other leaders at the G8 Summit and I wonder if all of these leaders are discussing the Congo. Most likely they are discussing trade, the economics of their respective countries while women and children are being repeatedly raped, tortured and killed. All of them are probably speaking of who gets to have what weapon and how much these weapons cost. Bush was concerned when North Korea test fired missiles, yet you do not hear him speak of the Congo. Where is his outrage when it comes to the suffering of these innocent people? Why aren’t those that rape these women and children part of the “Axis of Evil”?
George W. Bush has twin daughters Jenna and Barbara who are in their early twenties and I wonder what his reaction would be if they were, “abducted and forced to become sex slaves.” as children who are between the ages of 8 and 19 are in the Congo. I have read accounts of human trafficking and why is that not a top priority to the United States? We have a war on drugs, why not a war on human trafficking?
The Bush administration sold us all a bill of goods when it came to Iraq having weapons of mass destruction, yet there is a provable weapon of mass destruction in the Congo as you read this, “In the Congo, rape is a cheaper weapon of war than bullets. Experts estimate that some 60 percent of all combatants in the DRC are infected with HIV/AIDS.” In the case of HIV/AIDS, it is not a weapon that kills instantly but does so over a great amount of time and if the victim has no access to medications most likely wished they died instantly. Well that is occurring in the Congo.
As the United States government funds the illegal war in Iraq to the tune of billions upon billions of dollars, I do not think anyone would hesitate to spend that money on drugs to help confront these insidious diseases as I read, “women rarely have access to expensive antiretroviral drugs, sexual assaults all too often become automatic death sentences.” Maybe if you were Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh you would.
As the United States wonders where they will get the numbers to fight the war on terrorism, perhaps if they were to truly fight a war on this terror, more people would line up at recruitment offices. What is happening in the Congo is an ongoing war which creates terror. As reported in Ms. Goodwin’s column, “UN officers admit they have nowhere near the numbers they need to be effective, or even to stay safe themselves.” I think it would be moral and just to add to their numbers to save lives and truly punish these evil doers that rape innocent women and children where according to Ms. Goodwin, often the fathers are forced to watch and participate.
Aren’t you proud of your government when Woudenberg is cited as saying this, “In November I tried to raise the issue with the US Mission to the UN in New York, and they told me fairly point-blank that they were aware rape was going on in the Congo, and it was just not high on their priorities…I had a similar response from the US State Department." When I read this in Ms. Goodwin’s article, the rage built up within me. The forcible rape, slavery and murder of innocent women and children are not our priority? That is truly Godless thinking right there. I never want to hear Bush invoke God’s name if these heinous acts are not his administration’s priority.
If we truly wish to confront real terrorism, this passage is pure terrorism, “For the sake of 6-year-old Shashir and tens of thousands of girls and women who have been infected with HIV/AIDS, forcibly impregnated or so badly damaged internally they will never be able to have children, and who are so psychologically traumatized they may never recover” Yet, these victims of terror did not die in an instant as ours did on 9/11. They are the walking and living victims of terrorism. If you can call how they are forced to live truly living.
So, the next time you hear members of both parties making speeches that say nothing, why not ask them of the Congo. Ask them why they are not raising their voices to stop this terrorism. The next time you receive an invitation to a fundraiser or to contribute to any campaign, I would like to suggest that you send it to organizations such as Doctors without Borders.
After reading this, either send it onto others, or speak out against these heinous acts. After reading Jan Goodwin’s article, I came away thinking that it is truly the hidden terror that no one is speaking of and since no one is speaking of it, real terrorism directed at women and children continues.
