An article in the Washington Post describes the latest phase of the never-ending war in the Congo (formerly Zaire). The US and the UN have been funding and advising a force of Congolese soldiers to try to stabilize the border area with Rwanda, and this operation has has increased sharply since January. However, the increased deployment of Congolese soldiers has reportedly made “an already staggering epidemic of rape … markedly worse.”
The troops are believed to be a positive step in controlling violence inflicted by “abusive rebels.” And anyone who saw Hotel Rwanda knows how vicious those rebels can be. But the troops seem to be inflicting a huge amount of violence themselves. And we’re paying for this and sending advisers.
I’m not raising this as a partisan or nationalist issue. The US and the UN are on the same page, and it looks like both the Bush and the Obama administrations have have supported these stabilization efforts in that area.
Are we doing the right thing? Are these Congolese troops going to prove to be a net benefit over the long run, e.g., by repelling the rebels, will they enable the resumption of a civil society that can then impose enough order to stop the sexual violence? Or are they poisoning any hope of resuming an orderly and safe civil society?
Should we be backing some other party to this conflict? Should we take a more active role in leading and training these troops, in hopes of restraining the wanton violence? Other thoughts? SecState Clinton commendably spoke out against rape by soldiers today while visiting the Congo, but I suspect that this problem will not be responsive to diplomatic exchanges.
If we are funding and advising them that gives us leverage to insist that they stop things like widespread rape. I strongly suspect that we are doing no such thing, given our historical behavior. And no, a speech by Clinton doesn’t count unless the people involved have a reason to think it’s something other than hot air.
And if we can’t get them to behave in a more civilized fashion then we should stop supporting them in any way; otherwise we’ll just repeat history and find ourselves in a decade or two fighting people who hate us for what the people we have supported have done. That’s the general long term result of being “practical” and supporting tyrants and thugs because it happens to be easier at the moment.
I lived in the Congo from 1961 - 1962, and I’ve been reading Madelaine Kalb’s book on the diplomatic history of the UN involvement, and a good book by the station chief of the CIA there.
This kind of crap started five minutes after Independence, and has been going on ever since, on all sides. The place is a mess, was a mess, and will always will be a mess. It is too big to be held under control by even a competent dictator.
The solution might be to ignore the place, except for the fact that Katanga (or whatever they are calling it these days) has so many natural resources that it is essential for the world economy.
The only real solution would be to disarm the Congolese army and have the UN do the fighting, but that isn’t even remotely feasible. The best alternative is to try to reduce the number of outrages.
The Belgians screwed the place up, and it hasn’t recovered yet. When thinking about the Congo, you need to throw out all your preconceived ideas of what is rational. They don’t work there. Larry Devlin’s book has anecdotes that I’d be sure he was making up if I hadn’t lived there and seen stuff just as weird.
It’s a tragedy, but the entire country has been a tragedy for well over a century now.
What is the source of the conflict anyway? Is it ethnic divides reinforced by the Belgians? How about ramming some nice, widely disseminated propaganda in the form of a Hollywood movie shot in French or Lingala that depicts rapists on both sides as evil and holds up a shining example of Congolese manhood in the form of a tough guy (the Congolese Brad Pitt) who sees the futility in continuing the strife and seeks redemption by saving the women of the opposite ethnic group or something. Then have the UN arrange free screenings with free popcorn or Unimix or whatever the Congolese like to snack on for the army and the rebels et al.
As far as the OP goes, no, I don’t think we are doing the right thing, but I don’t know what the right thing is. Except maybe my movie idea…
Here’s my favorite. A few months after independence the Belgian Army was coming back to keep the airport open. The Congolese Army, which was out of control, was very mad at this. A bunch of them went to the American Embassy, and pointed a machine gun at the door. Europeans, the general term for whites, were considered pretty much the same.
The Ambassador went to the door, spoke to what passed for the head of this army group, and thanked him for coming to protect the Embassy from the Belgians. The guy looked confused, but said nothing. Then the Ambassador pointed to a statue 100 yards down the road, and said that he thought that was a better place for them to be to control the road. The army guy nodded his head, and they all moved off down the street.
Quoted from memory - I gave my copy to my Dad.
BTW, though there was a very nice university right out of town - where we used to go swimming - the Belgians only allowed Congolese in a year or two before independence. The entire class became ministers right after. My father met them when they all came for the ceremony marking the opening of the elevators in the UN hospital big enough to take stretchers.
BTW, here’s the book.. (Does the Dope get money from Amazon yet for links?) Devlin is given high marks in Kalb’s book, so he doesn’t seem to be just blowing his own horn.
I read Devlin’s book last year and found it fascinating. One thing that was particularly horrifying is that almost no Congolese were educated. There were either no or almost no black army officers. There was virtually no one to lead the country once the Belgians left. I am also willing to bet that there was a brain drain in the Congo as well.