An enormous humanitarian crisis is emerging in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Katanga Province, with tens of thousands of people being displaced, but so far the government and the international community are doing little. "Katanga is not on the political map, which is why such a massive humanitarian crisis can go ignored," said Jason Stearns, the International Crisis Group's senior analyst on Central Africa, who is working on a report on Katanga to be released in early 2006.

An enormous humanitarian crisis is emerging in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Katanga Province, with tens of thousands of people being displaced, but so far the government and the international community are doing little. "Katanga is not on the political map, which is why such a massive humanitarian crisis can go ignored," said Jason Stearns, the International Crisis Group's senior analyst on Central Africa, who is working on a report on Katanga to be released in early 2006.

The main opposition party in the Democratic Republic of Congo has reversed its decision to boycott the first full elections in four decades. Etienne Tshisekedi said that his Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) would after all take part in the polls due by July 2006. They had called for a boycott of a referendum two weeks ago in which a big majority backed a new constitution. The UDPS said the West had unfairly supported those backing a "yes" vote.

A senior Roman Catholic has said voters in Democratic Republic of Congo should reject a draft constitution in next Sunday's (December 18) vote. A "No" vote would delay elections due next year under a deal ending DR Congo's five-year civil war. A BBC correspondent in DR Congo says 55% of the population is Catholic and church leaders are seen as influential. Pierre Anatole Matusila said the constitution had not been explained properly to the population. "When I do not know what it is about, I say 'No'," said a statement released by Mr Matusila's Congress of Congolese Catholic laymen. It added that the 'No' would be a sanction against the way politicians use lies and manipulation to rule the country.

A mainly military delegation of the African Union arrived in Goma, the administrative centre of the province of North Kivu, on 18 November 2005, to assess the possible deployment of AU troops in the Eastern DRC. The head of the delegation, South African Brigadier General Hougaard, conveyed the strong will and determination of the organization to deploy troops to fight foreign armed groups residing and operating illegally in the DRC.

The international humanitarian aid organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) says that the army in northern Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has blocked relief workers from entering the area since beginning a military campaign against local militias there in mid-November. "We think there are many people who need assistance," the coordinator of MSF's Emergency Team in the DRC, Laurence Sailly, told IRIN on Monday from Kinshasa. However, MSF said as it could not get close to the front line it could not give a reliable estimate of the scale of the problem.

The War Child team (a programme team of 8 national staff lead by an expatriate Head of Mission) supports a number of local partners. These are local child and youth-oriented NGOs as well as schools. The Content Supervisor is responsible for the quality and content of War Child Holland’s programme in DRC as well as for its development.

Among other direct and underlying causes of deforestation, Africa's rainforest ecosystems are threatened by logging, as are virtually all of the world's remaining large, contiguous rainforests. These biodiversity rich rainforests provide critical habitat not only to local indigenous but all of the Earth's peoples and species. In the Democratic Republic of Congo the threat has become a reality.

Some 60,000 people fleeing fighting between the Congolese army and local Mayi-Mayi militiamen resisting demobilisation have now arrived in the village of Dubie in the Democratic Republic of Congo's Katanga Province, Roman Catholic Bishop Fulgence Muteba said. He said the 60,000 displaced in Dubie were in addition to another 16,000 people who fled the fighting against a local Mayi-Mayi leader he identified as Gedeon. So far, no other humanitarian agency has corroborated the number of displaced in Dubie.

The Independent Electoral Commission of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) announced on Monday (November 14) that 150,199 people had been caught registering to vote twice. Commission Chairman Apollinaire Malumalu said 300,398 of the names on the voter list had been registered twice with the same fingerprints. "Any voter who deliberately registers more than once will be struck off the electoral list," he said, referring to the article 45 in the country's voter bill. So far, cases of fraud have been only discovered in Kinshasa where registration ended in July. Registration started there late and is still taking place in several provinces because of logistical problems particularly in Bandundu and Equateur.

Though the armed conflict that plagued the Democratic Republic of Congo for years mostly has subsided, access to health care has not improved for many Congolese, according to a Medecins Sans Frontieres survey. Between 45% and 67% of Congolese surveyed in five regions of the country said they had no access to basic health care.

The International Rescue Committee currently seeks a GBV Program Coordinator for its program in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The GBV Program Coordinator is responsible for the on-going evolution, improvement and implementation of the overall IRC DRC strategy in the prevention and mitigation of GBV.

Public schools in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have reopened after a delay caused by 230,000 teachers who went on strike from 5 September to demand better pay. The teachers resumed work on Monday after they received salary increases of between US $14 and $45.

Communique de presse conjoint: Action Contre l’Impunité pour les Droits Humains/Rights & Accountability in Development

Un an après la commission des crimes contre l’humanité par les troupes des Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo (FARDC) commandées par le Colonel Adémar Ilunga à Kilwa en octobre 2004, les victimes et leurs familles n’ont toujours pas accès à la justice, ont constaté et condamné l’ACIDH et le RAID dans un rapport rendu public.

More than two years into the transition in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the peace process remains at risk, states the International Crisis Group. "As many as 1,000 people a day still die from war-related causes - mainly disease and malnutrition, but also continuing violence." The ICG says while the main belligerent leaders are all in the transitional government, their corruption and mismanagement threaten stability during and after the forthcoming national elections, now postponed from June 2005 to March 2006.

Four Corners, an Australian investigative TV programme, has revealed that an Australian mining company has been implicated in a massacre of at least 100 people. According to eyewitness accounts and investigation reports obtained by Four Corners, dozens of people, mostly innocent civilians, were summarily executed by soldiers with the logistical assistance of the Australian company. The bloodbath happened in the remote south-eastern corner of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Carole Chehade explores genocide - “the crime that has no name" - in the DRC and what it means for our common global humanity. The reason why the suffering in the DRC has been ignored, she writes, is because it “takes more African genocides to equal one atrocity visited on a non-African nation”. Genocide in the DRC then is a result of the world’s corruption, greed and bigotry, which unless dealt with will destroy humanity.

If numbers really drove the genocide ratings, then one would think 3.4 million dead and 2.25 million displaced would be numbers that shouldn’t be ignored. Instead, the conflict in the DRC is viewed as another “tribal” clash in Africa, rather than what it really is: an international battle with many governments and multi-national companies contributing heavily to genocide, without ever getting their own fingerprints on the crime scene.

The area that is experiencing the most conflict is in the Kivu province, located on the Eastern side of the country. Like many African nations, the DRC is an ethnically rich and diverse melting pot. This ethnic diversity is not the primary reason for the war, simply because ethnic and racial conflict has never been powerful enough alone to drive genocide. The genocide in the DRC has roots in corrupt domestic and international leaders, greedy business interests, the DRC’s rich natural resources, conflict in neighboring countries and the artificial nip and tuck of colonialism.

The DRC’s history is largely shaped by genocidal forces. The precursor to the current genocide in the DRC is trumped by an even bigger one spread by Belgium’s King Leopold II. Leopold’s murderous reign wiped out over half the population of what was ironically known as the Congo Free State. Like most oppressors, Leopold fabricated the positive reputation of being dubbed the King Builder because he constructed so many buildings in Belgium. The bigger the genocide, the wealthier the nation becomes that perpetuated the transgression from the shadows. The Belgians eventually left, relinquishing their political rights to the people whose bones were sucked to the marrow by the vacuumed mouth of colonialism.

When the DRC gained independence in 1960, the west competed against the Soviets to shape the DRC into western political ideals. The US helped overthrow Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba in 1960 because they feared he’d align himself with the Soviets. Instead, they backed Mobuto Sese Seko who helped CIA operatives dispose of Lumumba. When the Cold War ended, the west left many African nations, whose loyalties they bought for their own ends, with leaders who sold out their countries in exchange for perceived rewards.

During Mobutu’s era, anti-government alliances spread through the Kivu province. With growing anti-government rebellion, an influx of Rwandan refugees came into the DRC whom, in turn, were followed by hunters who were fresh from the Rwandan genocide. These hunters were known as the Hutus, who quickly created their own militia, known as the Interahamwe.

The DRC also had animosity against another Tutsi population, known as the Banyamulenge, who immigrated into the DRC hundreds of years ago. The Banyamulenge have a reputation as being successful citizens of the DRC who supported Mobutu. Because the Banyamulenge were a wealthy enclave, Mobutu returned the support but later relinquished the citizenship of all of the Banyamulenge, leaving them without protection. Mobutu’s shifting loyalties also drove him to openly support the Rwandan Hutus during the height of their extermination of Tutsis.

The brutal Mobuto regime outgrew the control of its American sponsors and, as a result, Mobuto was overthrown and replaced by Laurent Kabila in 1997. The honeymoon between Kabila and the US was short lived as the DRC fell deeper into the brewing conflict that exploded into a civil war that has cost millions of lives. Kabila quickly learned the limits of playing too many sides when he was assassinated in 2001. After the assassination, he was replaced by his son Joseph Kabila.

The unnatural deaths of the Congolese are inadvertently made possible by natural resources such as coltan. It is not oil that makes the DRC wealthy, but its diverse reserves which include a resource we use everyday in our technology-based society. Upon processing, coltan becomes a material which stores electrical charge. This hard to find commodity is found in the eastern region, which is coincidentally the heart of the conflict. Ironically we use coltan to help drive our information age, yet are clueless as to what human sacrifices help us get that information. This means the computers and cell phones we use are powered by the blood of genocide.

Incidents of rape in the DRC are amongst the most grotesque in the world. One of the most disturbing cases, which I have ever heard of, was the forcing of young men to rape their own mothers. The psychological chain of events that follows something this horrendous damages the sanctity of family, which in turn destroys a nation. I can enumerate even more brutalities, but are we so numb that the only way we feel for the victims of genocide is if they stand naked on the auction blocks of the world desperately trying to convince us of which atrocity is gory enough for us to finally act? The sophisticated wealthy class of internationals would be horrified if their wives, mothers and daughters were visited by armies of men waiting to rip apart the womb of one of their women.

The DRC’s genocide is a prime example of how many players it takes for a crime against humanity to occur. Wealthy businessmen from all corners of the world have all taken their turn in raping the voluptuous natural resources of the DRC until genocide screams out that there is nothing more left to ravage.

Although some of the world’s worst events are visiting the African continent with a vengeance, let us not conceit ourselves into allowing our subconscious racism to equate barbaric acts of genocide with African nations. My concern is not to argue whether Africans are more or less incorruptible; my argument is more concerned with where we, as a world community, place our concern.

Exterminating Africans has been the status quo for centuries. All African countries combined still are not enough to compete for world attention as one nation is in the Gulf. The US Constitution once called African Americans 3/5 of a person. Evidentially, that belief was never removed from our human constitution because it takes more African genocides to equal one atrocity visited on a non-African nation.

If we are to judge the worldwide exploitation by the powerful, then sadly the DRC is a logical result of our world’s corruption, greed, and bigotry, which blatantly takes without replacing. As a result, the most discriminated people on earth are reminding us that cause and effect is paid by those who have nothing to give but their lives.

Before the term genocide was coined in 1944 by scholar Raphael Lemkin, the Holocaust was recognized as "a crime that has no name." Part of the challenge of being able to do battle against any enemy is to call it forth by name. After the Holocaust, the world community rallied around the phrase, “Never again.” Yet “never again” has happened again and again.

Because genocide’s aim is to kill humanity, even the perpetuator will die. The seamless border of genocide means that this African World War will touch us across oceans and continents. Our interconnectedness means that since Africa was the cradle of humanity, then it will also become the death of humanity if we do not rise in its defense, which really means in our defense.

* Carol Chehade is a writer and filmmaker who runs a non-profit organization. She can be reached at www.onenewearth.com

* Please send comments to [email protected]

Thousands of civilians began arriving in the town of Walungu in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Monday following attacks on four nearby villages, in which at least 24 civilians were hacked to death. "Most of the displaced are small children and old women," Donatien Nakalonge, a local community leader in the town of Walungu in South Kivu Province, told IRIN on Tuesday. They walked 15 km from their villages of Tchindudi, Mungombe, Kanyola and Rudundu, in a valley 60 km south of the provincial capital, Bukavu.

The UN Security Council has expressed its concern over the presence of foreign armed groups in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, deplored the failure of the Forces démocratiques pour la liberation du Rwanda (FDLR) to proceed with the disarmament and repatriation of their combatants and exhorted them to do so without further delay, in accordance with the declaration they signed in Rome on 31 March.

A polio vaccination campaign in remote areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which was initially to start on 24 September, finally got underway on Tuesday after the project overcame logistical problems. The administrator of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) vaccination project, Dr John Agbor, said the three-day campaign was aimed at some 10 million aged under five years in six provinces in the northern and southern parts of the country.