In our time when information is so widely dispersed, one would think that few significant events remain untold; however, stories of the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are conspicuously absent from the news. Since 2004, 2.7 million people have been killed in the eastern DRC in the deadliest conflict of this decade. The current conflict in the DRC can be traced back to the aftermath of the 1994 genocide in neighboring Rwanda. After the Rwandan Genocide, millions of Hutu refugees, including many of the perpetrating Hutu militias, fled into the DRC, causing increased competition over resources. Soon after, local ethnic groups in the eastern DRC unified and formed militias in order to gain power and land. As the ethnic divides grew, many of the Hutu militias resumed their genocidal violence against the Tutsis, whom the Hutus killed in the Rwandan Genocide. In response, the Tutsi Rwandan government attacked the Hutu camps in the DRC. After the Rwandan incursions, rebel leader Laurent D. Kabila, with support from Rwanda, continued to fight the Hutus and eventually fought the government of the DRC as a whole. The fighting that followed between the DRC and Rwanda-backed rebels is known as the First Congo War. This war ended in 1997 when Kabila seized the presidency of the DRC; however, the violence continued. Rebel groups arose in the eastern DRC, claiming allegiance to either Rwanda or Uganda. Kabila ordered Rwandan and Ugandan troops to leave the DRC and, as soon as the troops withdrew, the rebel groups began to fight. As the next war began, eight other African countries joined the fighting creating a massive conflict known as the Second Congo War, during which 5.5 million people lost their lives. In 2007, a new conflict arose when rebel General Laurent Nkunda led his Congolese forces into the eastern Congo to protect the Tutsis and fight the DRC. His forces have been accused of countless human rights abuses, including mass murder, rape, pillaging and the use of child soldiers. The myriad Mai-Mai rebel groups, who roam the eastern DRC, looting, killing and raping, have further complicated the dangerous situation. Millions of innocent people have been displaced from their homes, countless others have been killed and many more die each day of preventable diseases. Furthermore, many militias from Rwanda have joined in the fighting in order to aid General Nkunda in protecting the Tutsis; however, many of these Rwandan militias also target Hutus in revenge killings. We can reduce the killing by cutting off funds to the rebels. Nearly every western nation funds the IMF and World Bank, organizations which, among others, gave $1.6 billion to Rwanda, money that partly has been used to fuel the war in the Congo. Nearly every computer, cell phone and iPod we buy functions by using coltan, an ore largely mined in the DRC by General Nkunda’s men as well as other rebel groups We must tell our government representatives to account for our aid money and demand that our taxes do not go toward the murder of innocent civilians. We must ask our electronics companies to purchase coltan from responsible and uninvolved mines. We can saves lives and actively stop needless death, but, first, we must cease to aid the killing of innocents. That is certainly a bare minimum that we all can agree to do. Daniel Glassberg is a four-year Senior from Boxford, Mass. dglassberg@andover.edu
