Photograph 1: IDP camp near Goma Photo Credit: Oxfam America Photograph 2: Congolese child soldier Photo Credit:

Amnesty USA

URGENT ACTION NEEDED TO SAVE LIVES IN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE

CONGO by Trish Morrow trishincyberspace@hotmail.com

Summary
URGENT action is needed to save innocent civilians who are suffering and dying, in the Third World
War which is taking place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Most are not suffering from
the violence itself, but from easily preventable diseases like cholera. Other water-related diarrhoeal
illnesses, HIV and respiratory infections complete the gloomy picture for Congo’s children and civilians.
Occasional outbreaks of the deadly disease Ebola1 add to the challenges facing health authorities and
humanitarian agencies struggling to respond to the fallout of the war.

Have any readers ever suffered from cholera? It is acute watery diarrhoea, and can cause death by
dehydration in a very short period of time (hours) if not urgently treated. During the years of this long-
running war, cholera outbreaks have plagued many different towns. Cholera is endemic throughout the
east where most fighting is taking place. For example, in Uvira, 40 cases a week is considered ‘normal’.
If the war does not end, will we see again the type of tragedy which is unfolding in neighbouring
Zimbabwe?

Did you know that many more people died/are dying in the Congo war than in Darfur? (5.4 million to
date2 vs. an estimated 390,0003) Yet Darfur is always in the news while the Australian media has
remained silent about the large-scale human tragedy in DRC. While there are daily news reports about
Afghanistan and Iraq, where is Australia’s concern for the genocide taking place during this Third World
War?

The silence must end. The future of Congo’s children depends on it. Action must be taken today. Every
single day lost sees hundreds more people suffering easily preventable diseases, displacement from their
homes, rape, loss of their assets and livelihoods, violence and human rights violations like forced unpaid
slave labour. Who is responsible for this war? All of us are, if rich nations like Australia turn a blind eye
to the suffering of our neighbours.

Solutions exist to all these problems. More and better targeted humanitarian, transition and development
aid is one solution. Boycott of the products produced from minerals trafficked by warlords is another.
Pressure from the Australian Government, and a continued role for the UN peacekeeping force, all of
these are solutions to the problems. Ultimately, history will judge us for whether we implement these
solutions or not. The time to act is NOW.
THIRD WORLD WAR

It is claimed the DRC has experienced two ‘civil wars’ between 1993 and 2006, however in reality it is
difficult to say that the war in DRC actually ever really stopped altogether. Certainly there have been
periods of more fighting and less fighting. A survey carried out by the International Rescue committee
claims that 5.4 million people have been killed since 1998, and around 45,000 continue to die every
month4. This makes the Congo Crisis one of the worst documented examples of genocide since World
War 2, and the worst African crisis, far worse than the crises in either Rwanda or Darfur. A Rwandan
census shows that some 937,000 died in the Rwandan genocide, a great tragedy 5. But not nearly as much
of a tragedy as the ongoing, chronic humanitarian emergency which is unfolding in the Congo. The
estimated 390,000 deaths in Darfur, while also very sad, almost pale into insignificance in the light of 5.4
million casualties in the Congo War. In fact, the figure of 5.4 million casualties in the DRC war comes
close to the total of 5.7 million Jews who perished in the Holocaust6.

During World War 2, 72 million people died, including 47 million civilians7. Must we wait until the
deaths in the Congo reach this number before deciding to take action? The estimated 5.4 million
casualties is already far too many. But still the fighting continues.

Thousands of Rwandan troops flooded into North Kivu province last month8.Last year, over 400 people
in the villages in the areas of Faradje, Duru, Gurba, Doruma, and Province Orientale were massacred in a
vicious attack carried out by the Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army, on Christmas Day.

Some reporters and critics have described Congo’s crisis as being a ‘civil war’. However, at least eight
different countries have been involved in this war, which makes it more like a ‘world war’. These
countries include Uganda, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Angola, Chad, Burundi and Libya.9 25
10
different rebel groups have been involved in the complex and protracted conflict .

Innocent children are caught up in the conflict, not only dying needlessly but being recruited by various
armies. Caritas, an international NGO funded by Catholic churches, claims that there are over 30,000
child soldiers which are active in the Congo.11 12 According to Amnesty International, some of these are as
young as 9 years old. Over 500 children have been kidnapped by the Lord’s Resistance Army, since
October last year.13

CHOLERA and OTHER PREVENTABLE ILLNESSES KILLING CHILDREN

Photograph 3: A suffering cholera patient, in Uvira hospital (Photo credit: Trish Morrow 2008)
According to the International Rescue Committee, less than 10 percent of the estimated 5.4 million deaths
can be attributed to the violence itself. Most of the deaths are in fact due to diarrhoeal diseases (including
cholera and typhoid), malaria, pneumonia and malnutrition 14. Sadly, most of the victims of these easily-
preventable illnesses are children, who account for 47 percent of the deaths, although they constitute only
19 percent of the total population.

Cholera is a disease which is unheard of in developed countries such as Australia, but sadly it is all too
real in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Have any readers ever suffered from cholera? It involves
vomiting, muscle cramps, weakness and acute watery diarrhoea, and can cause death by dehydration in a
very short period of time (hours) if not urgently treated. During the years of this long-running war,
cholera outbreaks have plagued many different towns. In 1994, approximately 50,000 people died of
cholera, mostly in the refugee camps near Goma15. In Katanga, 97 people died between September 2007
and February 200816. In January 2008, Medecins Sans Frontiers recorded more than 1,700 cases of
cholera in Lumbumbashi, Bukama and Likasi17

Cholera is endemic throughout the east where most fighting is taking place. For example, in Uvira, 40
cases a week is considered ‘normal’. If the war does not end, will we see again the type of tragedy which
is unfolding in neighbouring Zimbabwe?

The shocking truth is that cholera is an easily preventable illness, which has been eradicated in developed
countries where people no longer live in unsanitary conditions. Many NGOs are working to eradicate
cholera and prevent flare-ups of the illness from developing into full-scale epidemics. One such NGO is
Oxfam GB, working together with local partners, the government and other members of the Uvira WASH
cluster. Working together has lead to the achievement of a notable reduction in cholera cases, as
highlighted in the graph below. This graph shows the reduction in cholera cases, comparing the same
period of the year (wet season) as the previous year and the year before that.
C holera Morbidity f or Lemera Health Zone 2006- 2008

70

60

50

40 2006
2007

30 2008

20

10

0
S1 S2 S3 S4 S5 S6 S7 S8 S9 S10 S11 S12 S13 S14 S15 S16 S17 S18 S19 S20

Week

Progress indicated by the epidemiological data graphed above cannot be attributed solely to Oxfam GB, of course,
as other NGOs have been working in the zone and of course partner agency BCZS and the local authorities have
also been working to reduce cholera cases, nevertheless the results displayed are promising, and show that change
is possible.
Photograph 4: At a training workshop in Lemera, 20 volunteer chlorinators from Oxfam GB’s partner agency Red Cross and 10 chlorinators
from partner agency BCZS learned how to use a syringe to measure the correct amount of chlorine solution for disinfecting each litre of
water, to prevent cholera outbreaks from escalating to a full-scale epidemic.

DISPLACEMENT AND RAPE

In 2007 more than 370,000 villagers in north Kivu were displaced by the fighting. Of those who survived
the fighting, more than 45,000 crowded into five IDP camps, afraid to return to their villages for fear of
further violence18.

According to UNHCR, almost 1.4 million people have been displaced by the fighting in DRC, with
around 344,000 refugees in the surrounding African nations. The displacement continues. Recently, on 24
February 2009, UNHCR reported a further 3000 displaced people around Remeka village near Masisi
(North Kivu)19. In early February, attacks by the Lord’s Resistance Army caused 15,000 refugees to flee
to Sudan. 20

Hundreds of thousands of women have been raped in the DRC21 since the war started, including children
as young as 13 years. To date, there have been 27,000 reported cases of rape in the South Kivu province
alone, amounting to about 70 every day. 22 This is an appalling situation, which must not be allowed to
continue.

SOLUTIONS

The silence must end. The future of Congo’s children depends on it. Action must be taken today. Every
single day lost sees hundreds more people suffering easily preventable diseases, displacement from their
homes, rape, loss of their assets and livelihoods, violence and human rights violations like forced unpaid
slave labour. Who is responsible for this war? All of us are, if rich nations like Australia turn a blind eye
to the suffering of our neighbours.

Solutions exist to all these problems. More and better targeted humanitarian, transition and development
aid is one solution. Boycott of the products produced from minerals trafficked by warlords is another.
Pressure from the Australian Government, and a continued role for the UN peacekeeping force, all of
these are solutions to the problems.

Over many years, Australia has contributed $30 million to UN peacekeeping, and some fraction of this
has gone towards supporting the world’s largest peacekeeping force, MONUC, which is stationed in the
DRC23. MONUC consists of 17,000 soldiers and police. Apart from this contribution to peacekeeping, for
years the Australian government contributed nothing to humanitarian assistance, it is only recently late
last year that Australia contributed 5 million Australian dollars to fund assistance to displaced people.
This assistance is obviously very, very welcome. But it is not enough. According to Jan Egeland,
speaking when he was the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, "There are few places on
earth where the gap between humanitarian needs and available resources is as large - or as lethal - as in
Congo.24"

One very important way for Australians to support the Congolese is to help fund the work of
humanitarian and development agencies who are doing good work there. These agencies include Oxfam
GB, Medecins sans Frontieres, Caritas, Unicef (which funds other NGOs), Save the Children and many
French NGOs such as Acted, Assistance Medicale Internationale (AMI) and Action Contre la Faim.
Oxfam Australia has provided funding to Oxfam GB to implement a humanitarian programme in Beni,
North Kivu, and I really encourage readers to support Oxfam Australia, to allow this type of work to
continue.

Our Australian government could have a very important role to play in placing pressure on the warring
parties to bring about an end to the conflict. According to Tim Costello, CEO of World Vision Australia,
"Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Foreign Minister Stephen Smith have consistently called for greater
Australian involvement in multilateral institutions. Now is the time to put this into practice. The
Australian Government must work at an international level to find a solution to end the violence that's
threatening vulnerable children and women in the DRC."25 Of course, the Australian government will take
action when we, ordinary Australians, the voters and taxpayers, make our wishes known. If we continue
to remain silent, then nothing will happen. We must insist that our government take action on our behalf.

It is interesting for Australians to consider the role of minerals extraction and sale in providing an income
to warlords to fund the purchase of arms, which makes continued conflict possible. IC Publications’
Journal Africa Business commented some years ago that “The DRC war has become a necessity to most
of the seven combatants. With their economies in desperate straits they are relying on the spoils of war
for financial salvation. Diamonds, gold, coffee and a trickle of copper exports bring short-term relief to
their hard pressed exchequers. Caught between 'a rock and a hard place' they are desperately draining the
Congo of its resources”26. The demand for coltan, a rare mineral found in Congo, reached an all-time high
in 2000 when new technology started being used to manufacture laptop computers, game-playing devices
such as Sony Playstations and mobile telephones27. According to British politician Oona King, “Kids in
Congo were being sent down mines to die so that kids in Europe and America could kill imaginary aliens
in their living rooms” 28.

Now in 2009, has anything changed? Not much, according to Edoardo Totola of the International
Security Network at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. On 11 February he writes, “Illegal coltan
mining continues to fund conflict.” According to Totola, “Even though Coltan is not the only cause of the
Congolese war, it has been a core problem with neighboring countries, Rwanda in particular. It is also a
major source of revenue for rebel groups such as the Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP - a
Tutsi rebel group responsible for the North Kivu war in October 2008) and the Democratic Forces for the
Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) - a Hutu rebel group also responsible for the Rwandan genocide in 1994).“

There has been some limited positive change, according to Totola, as ,“many giant corporations such as
Nokia, Samsung and Motorola published specific corporate policies against the use of Congolese Coltan
and are today buying, at least officially, from other producers in Australia, Canada and few other
countries.” These changes are very welcome, but as the war continues, they are clearly not enough. What
would happen, if Australians (and others) decided to boycott products manufactured by companies which
use coltan sourced from DRC? I wonder, for example, if the laptop on which I type this paper has
somehow contributed to the suffering of the Congolese. But what if we stopped buying devices such as
playstation-type game playing machines altogether? We could maybe save lives in the Congo, and maybe
our nation’s children would have to stop staring at the screen and talk to each other, or exercise in the
fresh air….Would it really lead to an end of Western civilisation as we know it? Surely it is worth
thinking about.

According to a UN Report published in December 2008, tonnes of coltan are still being exported to
Europe every month, illegally smuggled via Rwanda29 It is very difficult to distinguish which companies
are purchasing illegally-mined coltan and which are using legally-mined coltan, as during the sales chain
it passes through many different hands and can be mixed together. A serious regulatory framework
imposed by the international community (including Australia) is needed to stop this illegal smuggling
which funds the war.

Many multinational mining companies, named in an earlier UN report in 200130, have so far evaded
prosecution in the International Criminal Court31. Some of these companies may have branches here in
Australia. But there is much that ordinary Australians can do to put pressure on companies to change their
policies. For example, as a result of dialogue with Caritas Australia, Western Australian mining company
Anvil Mining claims to have commenced implementation of the Extractive Industries Transparency
Initiative32, which aims to improve accountability and transparency in the mining sector 33. This dialogue
with Anvil Mining included many letters written by ordinary Australians who had been informed of the
situation in the DRC, through the work of Caritas. Now what could be achieved if people like you and I
wrote to other Australian companies involved in the crisis? Or even if we wrote to companies in Belgium
and Holland? A simple action, but consumers do have power, which we can use if we choose to. If we
care.

It is easy to feel powerless in the face of the enormity of the suffering which has taken place and is
continuing to take place in Congo. However, solutions exist to these problems, and ordinary Australian
people, working with our government, can be part of the solutions. Ultimately, history will judge us for
whether we implement these solutions or not. The time to act is NOW.

REFERENCES:
1
URL: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L29905822.htm Reuters Alert New Ebola Strain Infects 51, Kills 16
2
URL: http://www.theirc.org/special-report/congo-forgotten-crisis.html Special Report Congo: Forgotten Crisis
3
URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/23/AR2005042301032.html Darfur’s Real Death Toll
4
URL: http://www.theirc.org/special-report/congo-forgotten-crisis.html Special Report Congo: Forgotten Crisis
5
URL: http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=49384 Rwanda: Census finds 937,000 died in Genocide
6
URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust The Holocaust
7
URL: h t t p: / / e n . w i k i p e d i a . o r g / w i k i / W o r l d _ W a r _ I I _ c a s u a l t i e s World War 2 Casualties
8
URL: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LP644877.htm Rwandan Troops Leave Congo, Stoking Reprisal Fears
9
URL: h t t p : / / e n . w i k i p e d i a . o r g / w i k i / S e c o n d _ C o n g o _ W a r Second Congo War
10
URL: http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?lng=en&id=96390 Coltan and Conflict in the DRC
11
URL: http://www.caritas.org.au/AM/Template.cfm?Section=What_s_on&Template=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=4365
Caritas Australia: Congo DRC Violence – Forsaken voices report
12
Amnesty International USA, Email to members, Dated Friday 20 Feb 2009
13
URL: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/fromthefield/SaveChAlli/f3ca97853e98de146abd40ac8374e004.htm Mass Child
Soldier Release in Democratic Republic of the Congo
14
URL: http://www.theirc.org/special-report/congo-forgotten-crisis.html Special Report Congo: Forgotten Crisis
15
URL: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L01449778.htm Congo Refugee Camps Threatened by Cholera
16
URL: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/b951a5b43b03bf0af6f53a81aaa4c9d6.htm Reuters Alert - Cholera
Outbreak spreads in Katanga
17
URL: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/fromthefield/MSFIntl/120160597272.htm DRC: Cholera spreads in several cities
in Katanga province.
18
URL: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L01449778.htm Reuters Alert- Congo Refugee Camps threatened by
Cholera
19
URL: http://www.unhcr.org/news/NEWS/49a3c9a82.html UNHCR -DRC Growing Insecurity Causing More
Displacement in North Kivu
20
URL: http://www.unhcr.org/news/NEWS/499ae2674.html Number of Congolese Fleeing Lord’s Resistance Army tops
15,000
21
URL: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99838343 Group fights rape in Democratic Republic of
Congo
22
URL: http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5837&l=1 International Crisis Group – Combating Sexual
Violence in Conflict
23
URL: www.ausaid.gov.au/hottopics/pdf/drc_assistance.pdf Assistance to Democratic Republic of the Congo
24
URL: http://www.alertnet.org/db/crisisprofiles/ZR_CON.htm Congo (DR) conflict
25
URL: http://www.oxfam.org.au/media/article.php?id=535 Aid Agencies Call for Australian Government Action on
Congo
26
URL: http://www.africasia.com/archive/ab/99_01/abfe0101.htm Congo: Profit and Loss Account
27
URL: http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?lng=en&id=96390 Coltan and Conflict in the
DRC
28
URL: http://www.towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/1352/1 Towards Freedom - Inside Africa’s Playstation War
29
URL: http://www.scribd.com/doc/8921493/UN-Final-Report-of-the-Group-of-Experts-on-the-DRC UN: Final Report of
the Group of Experts on the DRC
30
URL: http://www.monuc.org/downloads/N0262179.pdf Final Report of the Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of
Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
31
URL: http://www.towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/1352/1 Towards Freedom - Inside Africa’s Playstation War
32
URL: http://www.caritas.org.au/AM/Template.cfm?
Section=What_s_on&Template=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=4365 Caritas Australia – Congo Crisis
33
URL: http://eitransparency.org Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative