At least 6,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in camps around Bunia, the main town of Ituri District in northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), are preparing to return to their villages of origin, Hamadoun Toure, the spokesman for the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC) said on Wednesday. "This return is a sign of the positive evolution of the security situation in Ituri," he said at a news conference in the nation's capital, Kinshasa. "These civilians are tangible proof of progress that has been made in Ituri."

On 15 March 2004, cameraman Robert Kadima Baruani, assistant cameraman Milla Dipenga and reporter Eric Ambago were harassed and detained briefly by a group of about 10 police officers at the Wagenia building in Kinshasa/Gombe. In addition, the journalists' equipment was confiscated. The three journalists work for Radiotélévision Kin-Malebo (RTKM), which broadcasts from Kinshasa. According to JED's sources, the RTKM crew had gone to the building to cover an illegal expropriation.

Central Africa is the region having the richest rainforest resources on the continent, and its Congo basin is second only to the Amazon among the world's rainforest regions. How these resources are used and who controls their "development" are issues that deserve wide debate. Yet new legislation to permit rapid expansion in logging is being introduced in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), on the advice of the World Bank, without significant consultation with civil society or people living in forest areas. The latest issue of the AfricaFocus Bulletin features a report from the Rainforest Foundation on new threats to the forests of the DRC.

Protection of children's rights was the focus of a UN interagency workshop held from 24-27 February in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Christina Linner, senior coordinator for refugee children of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR, served as one of the workshop's principal organizers. Originally from Sweden, Linner has worked with UNHCR for more than 20 years. She spoke with IRIN about her experience with regard to protection of refugee children's rights, in particular, but also about the rights of refugees in general.

On 14 February 2004, the Tshikapa Tribunal's Prosecutor's Office requested a 12-month prison sentence with no parole against Roger Salomon Lulemba Kiabululu, a correspondent with the Kinshasa-based weekly "L'Eveil". Lulemba was earlier charged with "defamation" against diamond entrepreneur Shamwenze Mwahindji. Tshikapa is the second largest city in West Kasai province, in the Democratic Republic of Congo's central region. In its 3 October 2003 edition, "L'Eveil" newspaper published an article written by Lulemba in which he reported on a conflict in the village of Mutshima between soldiers in the pay of Mwahindji and a group of young people commonly referred to as the "red army". Mutshima is located 110 kilometres from Tshikapa, near the Angolan border.

A three-day nationwide campaign to provide some 9.5 million children aged six to 59 months in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) with Vitamin A supplements was launched on Friday in Kinkole, 30 km east of the capital, Kinshasa, by Arthur Z'Ahidi Ngoma, one of the country's four vice-presidents. According to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), who in collaboration with Congolese authorities are carrying out the initiative, recent studies have found that 60 percent of Congolese children aged five and under suffer from Vitamin A deficiency, which is an underlying cause of 40 percent of childhood deaths in the country.

In 2003 the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced $10 billion in "debt relief" for the Democratic Republic of Congo. According to their calculations, this would reduce the country's foreign debt by approximately 80 percent. The offer came, however, with a full set of complicated conditions and deadlines. Even if all of the conditions are met, full relief would not be delivered until sometime in 2006. After that, Congo would still owe over $2 billion to foreign creditors. The largest creditors are the Bank and Fund themselves, plus the U.S., France, and Belgium. Yet the Congo, of all countries, has one of the strongest cases for full cancellation of debt and indeed for reparations from the lenders, writes William Minter, a Foreign Policy in Focus analyst and the editor of the AfricaFocus Bulletin, in this Foreign Policy in Focus commentary.

A delegation comprised of members of the transitional government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the ambassadors of France, Norway and Spain, and William Swing, the UN secretary-general's special representative to the country, is currently on mission in the nation's troubled northeastern Ituri District to urge armed groups to disarm, demobilise and reintegrate (DDR), the UN Mission in the DRC, MONUC, reported on Wednesday.

Ingele Ifoto, minister of social affairs of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), spoke with IRIN on Thursday regarding the development of a national strategy for social protection, following a conference on the matter that was held from 20 - 22 February. The DRC, a vast central African country with some 60 million people, is in the midst of major transition: a government of national unity was inaugurated on 30 June 2003, ostensibly bringing an end to nearly five years of war and leading the country to national elections in 2005. According to Ifoto, the war caused at least three million deaths, and at least 1.7 million people remain displaced. Many other segments of the population also continue to suffer the war's effects, including child soldiers, orphans, raped women, war widows, war injured, and the unemployed, among others, he added.

Since the unexpected arrival of the Portuguese traveler Diego Cao at the mouth of the Congo river in 1482, the peoples of the area to become the Congo had their lives more and more determined by processes started from far away and of which they had less and less control. At the time, they were hardly aware of the fact that in the world yonder, the need for peoples experienced in tropical agriculture would be forcefully satisfied by their best sisters and brothers being captured, kidnapped, shackled and shipped to America.

The resulting Atlantic slave trade, one of the cornerstones of globalisation, over determined irreversibly the lives of the peoples of the area. Even their very survival depended on the evolution of remote processes assigning changing roles to the area. Suffering and modernization would become almost two faces of the same coin marking their lives. The Atlantic slave trade was the first phase of globalisation, laying the foundations of the world market whose evolution would shape the adjustment and re-adjustment of parts of the world around an evolving center.

Three processes are involved when we are looking at globalisation: The first is the historical process of effective transition to capitalism in each country. This involves the transformation of a double articulation of relations and forces of production. This is the long process of transformation or destruction of the specific form of the African commune through the slave trade and colonialism to the present neo-liberalist structural adjustment programmes and poverty accumulation based epoch.

The second process is the historical formation and transformations of anti-colonial (in the broad sense including anti-Atlantic slavery struggles for life) 'mass' movements into more and more organized struggles for the recovering of land, bodies, psyches (selves) and cultures. This deals with the story about the changes of the agencies of struggles: their historical formation and transformations, their social character, their strategies, their programmes, their theories, prescriptions, dreams, ideologies of politico-social emancipation up to the conscious anti-globalisation civil society. In this process, we can only hail partial victories, mostly through accommodation rather than breaks from the commands from the centres.

Thirdly, the 'external domination' in Africa (or forced or willing incorporation of Africa in the outside originating processes) is what is often thought of as globalisation. It involves:
- Obstacles to national liberation/independence and local/national self-determination, self-reliance, South-South initiatives and pro-people developments;
- Imperialist domination and regional expansionism;
- Forms taken by super-power struggles for world hegemony inside and around certain countries in relation to conditions of accession into and character of their independences;
- The transnationalization process through multinational corporations and international economic organisations up to the ultra-liberalist destruction/reduction of the nation/state and the pursuit by the US of the politics of pure super-power, linking tightly politics to war and the US dream of becoming the present-epoch-Roman Empire;
- A world system of a political economy of crime (money laundering, drug and arm traffic, new forms of labour/sex enslavement, private or super-power State terrorism, etc.) develops and comes along. High and low intensity warfare, through regional relationships of forces of super-powers' proxies, continues.

Thus we differentiate three phases of globalisation: the first phase is based on the Atlantic slave trade (sometimes viewed as a pre-globalisation phase), the second phase was the integration of Africa through colonization and the third phase began in the late 1980's and continues up to now. The peoples who became known as the Congolese from the second phase, miraculously survived the first two phases. While the population was being drastically reduced by the slave trade, people took sometimes self-defeating forms of resistance. Some preferred to commit suicide rather than be enslaved and for a long time women were refusing to bear children for the slave trade. Communal forms of resistance and more advanced forms of capitalist opposition to the slave trade helped people survive, but only to be militarily conquered for domestic colonization. The forgotten holocaust (Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost, 1998), during the so-called King Leopold's Congo Free State, the most brutal integration of the area into the world economy, reduced the population estimated at 20 million to a mere 8 million in less than 30 years. It has not been possible to completely heal the effects of the accumulated traumas strongly influencing the forms, styles and sometimes content of the diverse cultures of our country. The continuing replay of those effects not only organize the submissive and docile character of public consciousness, but the regular violent outbursts that mark the bloody history of the Congo. Is the prevalence of the song a form of healing?

The international civilizing agents of globalisation initially behaved in a way that made the country become what one of the most honest of them described as Heart of Darkness. The colonialist attitude was more concerned about How much did the Congo cost Belgium (Jean Stengers, 1957) rather than how much did Belgian colonialism cost the Congo. Each attempt at trying to recast the relationship between the Congolese and globalisation psychologically (radical prophetism as healing - Simon Kimbangu and others), politically (P.E. Lumumba and others), militarily (P. Mulele and others), etc., unleashed the most barbaric forms of violence to infinitely discourage the possible resumption of similar attempts. Kimbangu was condemned to death and then to a life sentence (he died in jail, 1921-1951), Lumumba and his companions' remains were dissolved in acid. Mulele's body, cut into pieces, was put in a bag and thrown into the Congo river joining in the Ocean the bones of the rebelling slaves on the way to America. That was only the tip of the iceberg; how the less known ones were treated is not known.

Throughout its various phases since European contact, Africans have been forced into relationships imposed from outside, with catastrophic consequences for the majority. The transitions which took place - whether from slavery to abolition, from "discovery" to occupation, from negation to acceptance of Civil Rights (1866-1966), (W.E.B. DuBois, Reconstruction), from colonial status to Independence, from the Cold War to re-Globalisation – have generally had a negative impact on the relations between people in the Congo and between the Congolese people and others (J. Depelchin, 2003). Globalisation involves relationships to diseases, to means of death (traffic of arms), to the ecology, to the economy of crime (money laundering, drugs, sexual slavery), to the economy dominated by the dynamic of extraction of natural resources whose market is outside the country and thus also of looting, to world hegemony, to sexuality, to God, to peoples' psychology and cultures generally.

Pan-Africanism, independence or freedom and (racial) equality have characterized the consciousness of the Black man facing the various phases of globalisation. From the anti-slave revolts up to the independence of Haiti in 1804. From the first Negritude calls (Brazil) to the US-initiated Pan-Africanist Congresses. From anti-colonial struggles to national liberationist movements and independences in crisis. The anti-slave question, the anti-racialist question, the Pan-Africanist or African Unity question, the national question, the democracy question, the social question, the question of the protracted demand for compensation for slavery and for the equality of humanity, etc: all are so many calls from the struggles against globalisation.

Pro-globalisation consciousness often opposes those calls and celebrates calls for submission to and docility vis-à-vis the grossest forms of denial of the right to reclaim history and above all, as Cabral said, to assert the right of African people to make history: "The foundation of national liberation lies in the inalienable right of every people to have their own history." (A.Cabral, Unity and Struggles: Speeches and Writings, 980). To deny that right absolutely, the very existence of History is now being denied: History is globalisation made by everybody! Victims and victimizers are made equally responsible for the havoc that befalls on humanity. The world is said to have become a village, never mind the fact that movement of people from some parts of that village to other parts is extremely selectively restricted. When history of our people is allowed to be told, it is mostly done by historians acting as organic intellectuals of globalisation.

The Congo, without the willingness or consent of the Congolese, has been drawn into processes of mass destruction. In the 1940's the uranium which the USA used to execute its nuclear genocide of millions of Japanese at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, came from the Belgian Congo. The USA responsible for 60% of world pollution, is refusing to endorse the Convention on the conservation of Nature, it sustains that irresponsible posture thanks to the deep and wild Congolese forest that minimizes pollution's impact on the whole world. But does the West responsible for most of world pollution, care about helping the Congolese protect and reproduce the forest? Each time a major virus threatening humanity's health appears, the Congo is pointed out as a possible origin of the virus. What is done to equip the Congo to avoid those possibilities? Nothing of some importance has taken place in the Congo since its creation by Berliner powers (1884-1885), without the involvement of external, generally Western, forces.

It is on this basis that the current situation of the Congo in the context of globalisation should be examined if we are going to be able to throw some light on this crucial and vital issue for the next generation of combatants for real freedom.

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Congolese military officials confirm that about 100 civilians and seven military officers in the south-eastern province of Katanga have been brutally slaughtered by rampant peasant Mai Mai warriors since January. The killings near the town of Kitenge, some 700 km north of the provincial capital Lubumbashi, highlight the challenges for nearly 11 000 UN peacekeeping troops deployed largely in the country's lawless east.

At least 15,000 people have fled the village of Kitenge in the southern province of Katanga, where Mayi-Mayi militiamen have killed 100 people since 1 January, a local human rights official told IRIN. "Kitenge residents live in fear and in trauma. They can no longer go about their normal business, because the Mayi-Mayi are extorting, looting, raping, burning homes, cutting off fingers and the private parts and pubic hairs of their victims," Bin Masudi, the coordinator of the Katanga-based Committee for the Defence of Human Rights, said.

Roman Catholic bishops in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have denounced delays in the two-year transitional period, as well as the manner in which parties to the government have been conducting themselves. In a statement issued following a conference held from 9 - 14 February in the capital, Kinshasa, the bishops criticised the practice of certain members of government and other transitional institutions "of granting themselves certain advantages and openly showing their general disinterest in the well-being of the majority of the population".

A journalist in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has spent one year in preventive detention at Kinshasa's Penitentiary and Re-education Centre, national media rights NGO Journaliste en danger (JED) reported on Friday. JED recalled that on 14 February 2003 National Intelligence Agency officers arrested Bamporiki Chamira, a journalist with the daily La Tempete des Tropiques, in the capital, Kinshasa. Chamira was accused of plotting to kill President Joseph Kabila, trying to overthrow the government and seeking to avenge the death of Commander Anselme Massasu.

Télesphore Namukama, a radio programme host with Héritier de la Justice (Heir of Justice), a human rights organisation based in Bukavu, principal city of South Kivu province, in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, was arrested on 12 February 2004 by Security and Intelligence Services (Direction de la sécurité et du renseignement, DSR) agents. Namukama also hosts the Swahili-language radio programme "Plaidons pour la justice" ("Let us plead for justice") with the Bukavu-based station Radio Sahuti ya Réhéma (The Voice of Mercy). The DSR has accused the host of "Plaidons pour la justice" of "sowing anxiety within the local population" in the 10 February broadcast of his programme. In the programme, Namukama discussed the recent discovery of arms caches in Bukavu, which cost former provincial governor Xavier Ciribanya his job. Drawing lessons from the situation, Namukama concluded that it is unlikely that peace will return to South Kivu province in the foreseeable future.

Up to 300 cases of measles have been reported in Basankusu, 210 km northeast of Mbandaka, the main town in the Democratic Republic of Congo province of Equateur, the deputy director of epidemiological services at the Ministry of Health, Dr. Mondonge Makuma, said on Friday. However, doctors in Basankusu told the UN Mission in the DRC that some 800 people were infected, three of whom had died.

Security in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is improving so fast that United Nations troops can leave this year, President Joseph Kabila has said. Some 10,000 UN troops are in the DRC to monitor a peace deal which ended almost five years of war. Despite the peace deal, parts of eastern DRC in particular remain dangerous with many different armed groups killing, raping and looting.

Women for Women International is seeking an individual to serve as Country Director in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for a period of eighteen months. The Country Director is the official representative of Women for Women International in the country, overseeing staff, programs and administrative activities.

President Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo should prioritize justice for the horrific crimes committed in the country's five-year war, Human Rights Watch says in a new briefing paper. This week President Kabila is visiting Europe to meet with the British, French, German and Belgian governments to discuss their provision of support for the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The European Commission, in conjunction with U.N. agencies and potential European donors, initiated a mission of independent experts to assess the justice system in the DRC and is expected to recommend funding priorities to the European Union next month.

Since the mid-1990s, millions of Congolese have fled their homes to escape fighting between rebel groups and the national government in a complex conflict which has, at times, involved as many as nine neighbouring states. The UN estimates that 3.4 million people currently remain displaced, although the figure could be much higher since many of the displaced are not registered. Violence flared in May and June 2003, with hundreds of thousands fleeing fighting in the north-eastern district of Ituri. The situation stabilised in the second part of the year, following the establishment of a transitional government which incorporated several rebel groups; and the strengthening of international peacekeeping operations. As a result, IDPs got better access to assistance and many thousands started to return home.