Opinion
My dear Patrice,
On the 52nd anniversary of your brutal assassination on 17 January 1961, your people of 60 million have continued to see no peace, justice, nor liberation. The people have continued to profusely bleed to death.
Rape has become a weapon of war against thousands of Congolese women. Between August 1998 and April 2007, up to six million Congolese have died through unspeakable atrocities, disease, starvation and malnutrition. This figure is almost the same number as the Jews who died in the Holocaust, which leads one to ask: is it because they are black skinned Africans that global humanity responds with paralysis and indifference? If they had been Europeans, would the killings have been averted or lessened?
Surely the unfolding catastrophe in the Congo is of similar proportions to that of the Cambodian and Rwanda genocides, the Vietnam War, the wars in Europe known as the First World War, Second World War and the Balkans war? If you were alive today what would you say to the Congolese women who have been gang raped by fellow Congolese?
How would you comfort the children left orphaned by the multitude of vicious male warlords seeking self-aggrandisement and personal riches from the wealth of the Congo? What would you say to the hundreds of street children, uneducated and unemployed youths who were enticed into the rebel armies to commit horrific crimes against fellow Congolese? How is it possible that after 50 odd years of so-called independence the life expectancy of a Congolese woman is 47 years and that of a Congolese man is 42 years?
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