Catherine Ross's List: Global Issues Project

• Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba was murdered in 1961
• Moise Tshombe
• Maj. Gen. Joseph D. Mobutu
• Mobutu Sese Seko returned from Switzerland

  • ...where he was receiving treatment for cancer, and came but to a terrible situation - rebellion, bad politics, economical issues
• full-blown political rebellion against the Mobutu regime
• rebels routed government forces and overtook Kinshasa. Mobutu fled the country on May 16, 1997
• Kabila
• hoping for an end to years of poverty and decline
• Rwanda, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia and Congo itself signed a cease-fire agreement in July 1999
• requires the unwavering support of the diverse interests involved, but opens the door to the possibility of a United Nations peacekeeping mission.

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• man accused of planning the massacre of at least 2,000 Rwandan Tutsis during the 1994 genocide
• Gregoire Ndahimana
• hiding among the FDLR
• responsible for the deaths of at least 2,000 Tutsis

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• the NGO risks loosing all its credibility by issuing sensational reports on the situation in the DRC to make headlines.
• accused the NGO of pursuing a hidden agenda in the Congo
• trying to protect itself against “terrorist groups”.
• Lambert Mende said that the NGO seems to have found an “easy target” in the Congolese Government

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• 1998 and 2002/3
• mass displacement, collapse of infrastructure, and food shortages
• Africa's World War
• eight external national armies—those of Angola, Burundi, Chad, Libya, Namibia, Rwanda, Sudan, and Zimbabwe—all became involved at various stages of the fighting
• war officially came to an end in December 2002
• Rwandan government believes the DRC is harboring Hutu militias, some of whom may have been responsible for Rwanda's 1994 massacres.
• International Rescue Committee (IRC)
• most deadly since World War II (1939–45), with nearly 5.4 million people having died as a result of violence and instability since 1998.
• most of the deaths could easily have been prevented

  • Less than 10% were due to violence
    Most were killed due to treatable illnesses like malaria
    Infant mortality rate (20% kids die before their 5th birthday & 1/10 die in 1st year
    Lack of aid
• 1 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) were able to return home in 2007
• 565,000 Congolese forced to flee their homes as result of renewed fighting between government armed forces and militia groups as well as widespread human rights violations. This left the total number of IDPs estimated at 1.3 million
• multiparty elections in July 2006 (the first in forty years)
• hope amongst nongovernmental organizations and other international observers in the field that the DRC can emerge from years of crisis
• RC still faces considerable challenges on its road to recovery
• trade in such minerals
• Growing international awareness of the link between violence in the DRC and Western demand for cheap electronics has led various countries to enact legislation to force electronics manufacturers to track the exact source of the minerals in their products
• housands of Congelese women and girls have been raped

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• political violence in Congo, neighboring countries, such   as Zimbabwe and Rwanda, are taking sides in the conflict
• Laurent Kabila

  • Going against the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko
• After 32 years in power, Mobutu was finally forced into exile

  • This allowed for hope
• support for Kabila

  • Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia support Kabila and supposively have sent in troops to help.
• Congolese Movement for Democracy

  • Rwanda, and supposively Uganda and Burundi, have a new rebel army called the Congolese Movement for Democracy.
    
    Majority were oringially for Kabila, but once they took power of towns in Congo, their leaders decided to get rid of Kabila.
• control   the city of Kinshasa.
• Kabila made a dramatic re-entry
• took no prisoners

  • Rebels ended up withdrawing from Kinshasa, at least temporarily.

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• South Kivu province

  • Province in the eastern Congo
• worsening after the FDLR rebels attacked villages were they looted and raped women.

  • Security situation in all of Congo is terrible as presented here; villages are constantly being attacekd and women raped.