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Congo: 5 Million Dead; Calls for Changing U.S. Policy

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On Wednesday, the Armed Services Committee will have a hearing on the current situation in the Congo.

In a piece titled “The World’s Worst War,” The New York Times reported on Sunday: “Congo has become … one of the bloodiest conflicts since World War II, with more than five million dead. It seems incomprehensible that the biggest country in sub-Saharan Africa and on paper one of the richest, teeming with copper, diamonds and gold, vast farmlands of spectacular fertility and enough hydropower to light up the continent, is now one of the poorest, most hopeless nations on earth.”

MAURICE CARNEY [email]
Executive director of Friends of the Congo, Carney said today: “It is past time that the United States cease its support of strongmen in Africa, particularly Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda whose repeated invasions and support of proxy rebel militia inside Congo over the past 16 years has resulted in the death of millions of Congolese.”

DAVID WILEY [email] Wiley is professor of sociology at Michigan State University and chairperson of the militarization task force for the Association of Concerned Africa Scholars, which has just released a petition signed by over 200 Africa specialists calling on President Obama to:

– “Support a UN Security Council resolution requiring Rwanda and Uganda to immediately withdraw any support to the M23 armed group. …

– “Press the Congolese government to stop violations being committed by the Congolese army as well as entering into alliances with armed groups and fully implement Public Law 109-456: The DRC Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act of 2006 [This is a law that then Sen. Obama introduced and was signed in 2006]. …”