We applaud your visit to Congo last year. As American women, business owners, mothers, fathers, grandmothers, runners, and others deeply concerned with Congo, we are proud of your interest and commitment to Eastern Congo.

However, if the IRC mortality study statistics have held, more than 500,000 Congolese people have died since your visit. Tens of thousands of women, children, and even infants have been raped, including the recent incident of close to 200 women and infants, within 10 miles of a UN compound. This is our shame.

The USA has taken precious little action. That needs to change today. You are the leader to make it happen.

1. You promised Congo 17 million dollars. Why is it still sitting in a US Government account, buried in red tape? Unacceptable. Please do what you must to get this critically needed aid to Congolese women today.
2. The culture of impunity in Congo must end. Congo needs a justice system. The Congolese army must be professionalized, so soldiers “protect and serve” rather than “steal and rape”.   We urge you to coordinate with donor governments and the Congolese government to spearhead a comprehensive national security sector reform plan for Congo.

Congolese women and children need your immediate action. We look forward to celebrating your bold, immediate leadership on this critical issue.

Sincerely,

A Thousand Sisters

{Please add YOUR name and personal note to Secretary Clinton here. I’ll pass it on!}

Lisa Shannon, Founder, Run for Congo Women, Author A Thousand Sisters, Sister to Generose & Thousands of other Congolese women.

            Francisca, a Congolese ex-pat and fellow Portland Run for Congo Women organizer, comes from Dungu, a small town in the far northeastern corner of Congo, nestled on the borders of Sudan and Uganda.  The notorious Ugandan militia the Lord’s Resistance Army has spread into Congo and south Sudan over the past couple of years. On Christmas Day 2008, four of Francisca’s Aunties and Uncles attended Christmas Mass.  The LRA showed up, and killed them along with all 400 people attending the holiday service.

            This year, the LRA have sent written threats announcing their plan to “celebrate” again.

            Why would anyone living under daily threat of attack choose to attend a holiday service?  One of my most striking first impressions of the Congolese was their fervent Christian faith. For instance, when I visited the village of Kaniola, pounded by twice weekly massacres by the Interahamwe (the militia responsible for the Rwandan genocide- still killing people), I was dumbfounded to find most villagers dressed to the nines- belts, loafers, suit jackets, dresses with lace trim.  Then I realized it was Sunday morning. They were heading to church. On another occasion, I asked a sister I sponsor through Women for Women, about the first thing she said to her children when she woke up in the hospital following an off-the-charts massacre that claimed the lives of her husband and nine year old son.  She replied, “I told them to Thank God. I lived.”

            How is it that in Congo, people who face some of the worst violence known to humanity, could maintain such strong faith, when our faith feels like it is stretched to its limit by a cheating boyfriend or a drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average?  I’m not religious, so I’ won’t posture like an authority.  Instead, the observations of renowned psychiatrist and Jewish Holocaust survivor Viktor Frank may shed some light.  “The religious interest of the prisoners…was the most sincere imaginable.  The depth and vigor of religious belief often surprised and moved the new arrival…The last inner freedom cannot be lost.  It can be said that they were worthy of their suffering; the way they bore their suffering was a genuine human achievement. It was this spiritual freedom- which cannot be taken away- that makes life meaningful and purposeful.”

            In the face of overwhelming international news, as we are tempted to shut down and tune out, perhaps we can draw some inspiration from this kind of faith. We may not be able to waive a magic wand and make mass atrocity go away, but do we not we each possess that last of human freedoms to choose our reaction to it? In this way, is activism not an act of faith?

            This Christmas, Congo will be back in the national spotlight.  Oprah will be re-airing the show on Half the Sky and Congo, on which I appeared in the fall (your regular local time and station).  So this holiday, as you wait out the post meal bloat, go for another round of pie, or snuggle up with a loved one (the Congolese would not fault you any of it- in the face of everything, they still know how to party!)- or if you’re hunkered down avoiding all things tinsel and lights- consider watching Oprah and sharing Congo with your family and friends. Trust this simple act of faith will have reverberations beyond anything you can know, and will touch in you that last human freedoms. A beautiful way to celebrate!

            Happy holidays!

Several months ago, I had the great pleasure of meeting with the brilliant Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold’s Ghost and Bury the Chains, and expert on building social movements.  He explained that every successful social movement has no more than 3 or 4 key “asks”/ levers to address the issue. Think “Ban Apartheid” or “Abolish Slavery”.

I have some solid ideas, but no easy answers. So I ask you- I’d love your thoughts: What are the top 3 actionable “asks” or levers the grassroots should push for to solve the crisis in Congo?

Anyone? Anyone?

I’ll post my thoughts after others have a chance to share!

Ding, ding, ding, ding! It’s the hundred million dollar question.

The DR Congo is among the most mineral rich countries on the planet, with stores of more than 1,100 minerals, including diamonds, gold, copper, tin, cobalt, tungsten, and 15-20% of the world’s tantalum, otherwise known as coltan, an essential semi-conductor in electronics like cell phones, laptops, video games, and digital cameras. You likely have a chunk of Congo in your pocket.

The United Nations has accused all nations involved in the conflict as using the war as a cover for looting. How does it work?  Militias control territories that contain mines. The militias mine and export themselves, or “tax” locals who do the work for them. Everyone seems to be in on the action: Corrupt government officials who line their pockets through shady contracts; foreign militias; foreign governments who back militias; the Congolese government army; the Mai Mai and other home-grown militias; and of course, the Interahamwe, who control the majority of mines in South Kivu. In a few cases, even UN soldiers. The New York Times ran a report by Lydia Polgreen in December 2008, outlining such an operation, run by a renegade Congolese army brigade, who control a remote, mineral rich area, “master of every hilltop as far as the eye can see.” Unchallenged, they employ locals at ultra-low wages to mine, block all paths, and lug loads of ore via remote forest trails- as far as 30 miles- to the nearest road, where the goods are trucked to a stretch of road that serves as a landing strip for Soviet-era cargo planes, who fly them to Goma or out of Congo.  How much does a guy make carving out his own slice of this pie? One official estimates $300,000 to $600,000 in “taxes” alone.  This operation is estimated to be worth as much as $80 million a year.

The goods are illegally exported to countries like Rwanda or Uganda, who in turn ship them to processing plants, primarily in Asia. Eventually, large corporations buy them and distribute these conflict riches around the world in the form of our favorite consumer goods: diamond engagement rings, Sony Playstations waiting under the Christmas tree, that sleek, new MacBook Air, or our ever-precious Crack-berries.

According to The Enough Project, in 2008 alone, armed groups will have made $185 million from illegal trade of Congo’s minerals. Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi, as well as Congolese government officials, have made hundreds of millions of dollars off of the Congo plunder. For instance, in the first half of 2008, Rwanda’s primary tin mine will produce about five tons per month.  Yet, in the same period Rwanda will report 2,679 tons in tin exports.  According to UN reports, when Rwanda seized control of eastern Congo in the late 1990’s, they smuggled hundreds of millions of dollars worth of coltan, cassiterite, and diamonds to Rwanda.  The New York Times quotes one Rwandan government official, “I used to see generals at the airport coming back from Congo with suitcases full of cash.”

But rebel groups can only control the minerals if they control the territory. And they can only control the territory if they control the people. And there is one age-old way to control the people: terror.  As one Harvard researcher puts it, there seems to be a “competition among armed groups to be the most brutal.”

We can stop the atrocities in Congo if we stop the gravy train fueling the conflict. Log onto the Enough Project website and send a message to 21 of the top electronics companies letting them know you support Conflict free electronics. It takes about a minute. Then reach out to your friends and ask them to do the same.

http://www2.americanprogress.org/t/1659/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=6265