Rape: To seize & take away by force. Force: Strength or energy exerted by active power.
Power.
Congo has been fighting the world’s deadliest war for over 15 years. More lives have been taken in this Civil War than in World War II.
Can we not agree the most fathomless issues within Congo are because of the everyday, informal, mundane demand for power - to be power hungry, in control, one of higher authority over another?
United Nations officials have called Congo the epicenter of rape as a weapon of war. Michael VanRooyen, director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, has defined this conflict as a war against women.
Why is there fighting in the first place? Congo is covered in mines filled with minerals. Communities live near these mines, making it hard to exploit what’s found within them. Sexual violence is used as a weapon to remove the civilians from the mining areas.
Estimates of over 43,000 women alone were raped in the month of October. That’s one daughter, a mother, a grandchild, aunt, niece, or sister about every minute. Over a thousand girls in a single day. Over 500,000 a in a year’s time. Over 12 percent of Congo’s population has been raped at least once in their lifetime. Abuse in the home has risen to over 22 percent. Most violent rapes take place in the countryside, far from law enforcements.
Why are women the highlight of most attacks? Women in Congo are found to be “the heart of the communities.” When the heart leaves, so does the rest of the people, as if a queen ant was to leave an ant hill.
First Commander Sheka ordered his military to attack the bodies of over 387 men & women in a single day, during a mass rape held last year in Walikale. Sheka is the leader of the Congolese rebel group, Mai-Mai Sheka, now running in November or 2011, to represent the city he formerly attacked, even with a warrant for his arrest held over his head. Later that year the military moved through 13 adjacent villages assaulting hundreds of villagers. Anneke Van Woudenberg, senior Africa researcher for Human Rights Watch says “The failure to arrest someone who is out publicly campaigning for votes sends a message that even the most egregious crimes will go unpunished.” Sheka has yet to be imprisoned.
Officials say efforts to prosecute rapists are frustrated by flawed laws that pack prisons with poor young men while real rapists roam free in the countryside. Central prison inmates have no beds or blankets and eat only a few hundred calories a day.
Because rapists are not being punished, civilians are starting to copy the acts of the enemies around them. Too much impunity is taking place.
This all is a plan, a tactic, a message sent to these communities. Many people here no longer have a voice. People who can speak may not know the truth. This is promotional, a message I’m sending to the people in surrounding countries that have the right power, the truth, and a voice which can start a path to stop it all. “When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.” –Jimi Hendrix
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