Earth Day 2008: Spotlight the DRC

Instead of the traditional post on Earth Day where I highlight all the things we can or are doing to make the world better, I am writing about one of the environmental disasters we are doing very little about. The issue in the DRC rainforest is directly related to the conflict in the Congo that I, and other bloggers, have been discussing all month. This Earth Day, think glocally and do your part to not only reduce your own carbon footprint but also to stand in solidarity with people who are being routinely exploited physically and sexually so that corporations can exploit them economically. By refusing to purchase conflict timber you are participating in a global environmental movement that turns away from global capitalism and its recent attempts to make Earth Day a consumer product. You are also undercutting a critical piece in the global exploitation puzzle.

The Rainforest Foundation warned this past week that several speculators are poised to buy the rich forests in the DRC where the majority of villagers terrorized by civil war currently live. The DRC has one of the largest “untapped” virgin forests in the region; it is the world’s second largest rainforest, second only to the Amazon. In order to access timber the population has to move, and/or give up their land rights. However, more than 60 million rural Congolese people depend on the forest. Women are the primary cultivators: they chop the wood, collect the plants, etc. to provide for most of their daily needs. Thus it is in the best interest of multi-nationals to continue the conflict and allow rebels, military, and even UN aid workers to target women and girls. Without safety nor the cultivators of the land, exploitation is easy and largely unchecked.

Contest mapping is critical here. Largely Western MNCs have already guaranteed 11 existing logging concessions from the government by undercounting villages. They claim only 30 villages exist in an area that has over 190.

The Rainforest Foundation has partnered with local villagers to fight undercounting by mapping the area with GPS. Their work will ultimately be compromised by any rebel fighting or rape related exodus that occurs during the documentation. MNCs will likely undermine the results by citing similar events that occurs after it. Even if their results are considered valid by the government, illegal logging has been taking place since as early as 2002 and is unlikely to stop as long as conflict continues. Instability and social decimation instigated through the public sexual and physical assault of women and girls, and the murder of men, ensures access. (Many who watched the film The Greatest Silence asked why rebels would intentionally create fistulas, holes in the bladder, resulting in a constant stream of urine, after rape; one reason is that it is a constant reminder of the violence that awaits women not only in their homes but in the forest. A reminder like that is not only a powerful message for social control over the villagers but also an incentive to give the rights to the forest to others in exchange for promises of needed supplies which MNCs are all too willing to make.)

It is estimated 1200 people die each day because of the conflict. 370,000 people, primarily from rural areas, have been displaced to date. 5.4 million people have died.

Another 27,000 die monthly from malnutrition and health problems that could be prevented if the violence was to cease. Not only would the DRC’s stability put an end to new cases of fistula related health problems, it would give them the economic security, through regained control of coltan, diamonds, and timber, necessary to create and maintained social services and programs. Finally, the rainforest itself contains many of the medicines and nutritional needs of those 27,000. Meaning that an end to conflict and conflict goods trading would potentially save the lives of 324,000 people a year in the health sector alone.

Perpetrators (click links for contact info):

• World Bank – Green Peace estimates that 107 of 156 contracts to log in the DRC were signed after they convinced the WB to intervene with a moratorium on logging and the WB has done nothing to prosecute or bring sanction against those companies or nations that ignored the moratorium.
• German-Swiss Danzer (Siforco) group
  
• the Portuguese Sodefor
• Singapore-based Olam – Olam is particularly suspect because it claims to sell “sustainable products” and has fair trade packaging
  
• Belgium’s Sicobois
• Lebanon’s Trans-M
• N. American company Safbois – the article

Many of these companies make false attempts to comply with international law by buying villagers rights with bags of salt and bottles of beer reminiscent of the colonial period. They have also promised food and schools. None of the promises have been fulfilled and even if they were none are equal to the wealth leaving the country. Again these deals depend on the abject poverty that the war perpetuates.

You can also find a list of Coltan exploiters from ABW

Ways you can help:

1. Educate yourself and others about the rape of the Congo – I have several posts on it here over this month as do other bloggers, you can also read the articles from the Rainforest Foundation, the pieces linked to in this post and the source list below, and the list of information and videos on Black Woman Blow The Trumpted (see side bar for links under “The View from the Congo”)
2. Donate to the GPS efforts
3. Hold an Awareness Event and show the film The Greatest Silence
4. Instead of going on vacation this summer, educate yourself, and then partner with one of the decolonized or indigenous relief agencies in a service summer (see some of the agencies I have discussed in previous posts for a start)
5. Ask your local stores not to stock any timber shipped from the DRC
6. Refuse to buy products from the companies listed above and write them to let them know
7. write your congress person and urge them to pass Senate Bill 2279
8. Attend area Democratic Debates and pose the question to the presidential candidates about what they will do to stop the rape of land and women in the DRC (partner with the Enough Project if you need help getting started)
9. Ask your own representatives what they will do to stop the rape of land and women either at public forums or write a letter
10. Start a letter writing campaign to your Congresspeople for the same thing
11. Spread the word!!!

Remember, control of the DRC’s resources will not only help put an end to one of the major incentives for the war but also to bring stability in the post-war, ensuring that the incentive to exploit women and girls in the post-war era is also lessened.

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sources:

• BBC
• Green Peace

Remembering Columbine

Today marks the anniversary of the first school shooting massacre in the nation. I have written on schools and guns many times over the last year and especially since NIU and so I am not going to reiterate those points here. For the survivors of Columbine, I wish you continued strength and hope. For the nation looking back on this moment, I can only say *again* please stop turning these moments into the exception, parceling them out, so that we can learn from them and change. If we had looked at gang violence in the schools as school violence instead of inner city problems would Columbine have happened? If we hadn’t invented the “trench coat maffia syndrome” would we have been more open to all the ways that school shooters have morphed since then? I don’t know. I can only say that being open, looking to connections, and working toward healing rather than redemptive violence might be a better way. This is the path the Amish families took after their school shooting in October and it was a powerful one to witness.

Anniversary of Oklahoma City Bombing

Today is the 13th anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombings, the largest single act of domestic terrorism on U.S. soil. It claimed 168 lives, many of them day care aged children, and injured 800 more. One of the bombs was set inside of the day care center, intentionally targeting the most defenseless. Despite the fact that the man punished for the crime, Timothy McVeigh, claimed that it was an attack on the U.S. Government and that he did not act alone, very little was done nationally to respond to the attack after McVeigh was captured. (Like the NIU gunmen, McVeigh was also a veteran from Iraq. During his service in the first Iraq war, McVeigh wrote back to his parents repeatedly about the violence all around him and the civilian casualties he was asked to overlook. He later claimed that the bombing was not about toppling the government nor white supremacy but rather about getting the citizens of the U.S. to see what the real cost of war is – innocent lives lost, especially women and children. Somewhere in his warped thinking he said he believed such a horrific bombing would force the U.S. government to stop its war for oil b/c the N. American people would not allow such violence. Instead, it prompted the first discussions of adapting the prevention of terrorism acts from England’s war against the Irish. Though it was voted down amidst N. Americans saying it would never be passed, we all know what happened after 9/11.) Regardless of which version of “why” you believe, none of them garnered the attention and reflection that the most horrific act of domestic terrorism and the worst act of terrorism prior to 9/11 the country has ever seen should have warranted.

I often wonder whether this tragedy was mediated by the white supremacist leanings of McVeigh and others and the number of poc among the dead. I remember distinctly the first images from Oklahoma were of a black baby burned and yet still breathing; she survived. We have never been a nation that takes domestic terrorism seriously whether it is white supremacy or the anti-abortion movement’s websites calling for doctors, nurses, and advocates to be struck down or sending anthrax and bomb threats. As McVeigh’s story came to me a few days ago in a book about Radical Christianity I am reading, I also couldn’t help but wonder if the reason more attention was not spent on Oklahoma was the desire to cover up the cost of war on our troops and on civilians in the Gulf. Had we listened to McVeigh’s letters and his final statement, would we have been stronger in our efforts to end this current war? As we remember this tragedy today, let us also consider what kind of nation we would live in if these acts were disavowed with the same vigor as 9/11 and what we might have prevented, or at least been better prepared for, if we had taken both Oklahoma and Timothy McVeigh more seriously.

In 2000, the Oklahoma City National Memorial Opened to honor those whose lives were lost. It includes both outdoor and indoor installations. The outdoor memorial uses several modes of absence to illustrate what was lost but also a powerful memorial to the survivors reminding us that even in loss their is resilience. Inside, a moving display of the faces of people lost that day with their names on plaques. Unlike the controversy surrounding the 9/11 memorial plans, curators of the Memorial have honored the documents of the survivors and mourners by allowing the gate of the museum to be a place where people can put up their own images, poems, statements, etc. from the initial attack as well as now.

Not only does the memorial focus on information on that attack but also media coverage of terrorism in general. It is envisioned not only as a memorial and healing but also a place to learn. If you are in the area, they will be holding events all day today.

Aime Cesaire died today

Acclaimed post-colonial poet and writer Aime Cesaire died today. His influence has spanned generations beginning when he coined the term and co-launched the Negritude Movement in the early 1930s in France. He also started the Black Student Journal there where many of the radical black intellectuals and creative writers came together and launched a global black literary renaissance as well as political thinkers and leaders. His influence was far reaching but included thinkers/writers like Wolye Solinka and Franz Fanon. His staunch stand against colonialism and its legacy not only showed up in some of the most beautiful poetry, plays, and prose I have read on the subject but also in the halls of government where he consistently criticized those who would excuse colonialism or claim that it had some “good aspects.”

In honor of Cesaire’s beautiful and righteous mind, I urge you to sit down with the play that made me study post-colonial literature: A Tempest. Not only should it make you think long and hard about the disconnect between the world view of the colonizer and the colonized, it should resonate with recent events and how it is that our views are so different. As Hurtado says, the closer you get to patriarchy the harder it is to disavow all of its manifestations (meaning racism, classism, homophobia, ableism, ageism, etc.)

Anniversary of Virginia Tech

April has become one of the saddest months of the year for those who remember. It is the month in which Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed, 12 students and teachers were gunned down while 23 others were injured at Columbine, and 168 daycare age children and adult workers were killed and 800 injured in the Oklahoma City bombings.

Today, April 19, 2008 is the one year anniversary of the Virginia Tech shootings. 32 people were killed by student gunman Seung-Hui Cho in Norris Hall. The opportunity to use this incident to learn about why youth engage in school based violence and how we as a culture can prevent it was quickly lost in favor of exceptionalism, anti-immigration, and anti-Asian rhetoric. The survivors at Virginia Tech called for mourning not hate. Norris Hall was transformed into a Center for Peace Studies.

As reported earlier, several states have made the controversial (and wrong-headed) decision to allow concealed weapons on campuses in an effort to arm potential victims against potential attackers. Sadly, the Pistol and Rifle Club at Virginia Tech is among the supporters of such measures. They are actively recruiting students with the promise that a concealed weapon would have kept them safe.

As we mourn the lives of the Virginia Tech students on this one year anniversary of their deaths, let us not forget that violence begets violence. We can continue to meet our problems locally, nationally, and internationally with a show of force or counter-force or we can start to examine and dismantle the structures that make people choose violence. We can build a better world though seldom from the other side of a gun.

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• photo 1 – Getty
• photo 2 – AP

Remembering Rwanda

As a memorial procession walked through the streets of Kigali this Friday, someone sent a burning car through their ranks, killing one of the marchers. The burning car was one of two violent attacks that day. A bomb was also set to go off at Kigali Memorial Centre. Center staff say that nothing was destroyed and the bomb served to bring more people in rather than scare them away.

Friday was the last day of a week long event memorializing the 14th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. In memory, the BBC is rerunning their 2004 series of stories from the perpetrators and the survivors. Those who have seen The Greatest Silence will recall that the Interhamwe, the genocidal militia responsible for the massacres and mass rapes in Rwanda, are one of the major rape perpetrators in the DRC. Not only are they raping and torturing women in the DRC but they are waiting for the time they can return and finish what they started back home.

When the 100 days were over, 84% of the Tutsi population was dead. 2/3 of the teachers, mostly women, were dead or exiled. Women and girls had been systematically raped and forced into “sex camps” for the militia. UNIFEM estimates that nearly 500,000 women and girls were raped during the genocide. Despite these facts, the narrative on sexual violence remained largely individualistic and often left out. Yet women made up 70-80% of the post-genocide population and they rebuilt the nation, taking positions in government, producing 70% of the agricultural output, and building over one hundred support groups and service agencies designed to address the aftermath of genocide and the rebuilding of Rwanda. Several of these organizations came together and formed Pro-Femmes Twese Hamwe whose tireless work supporting women’s rights has been recognized internationally with several awards.

If you would like to help, please educate yourself about the Rwanda genocide, spread the word about continuing problems and indigenous solutions, including sharing what the failure to address sexual violence on any large scale has done to allow that violence to continue in neighboring DRC, and/or consider donating. If you would like to give to support the Memorial Centre and keep their memories and their stories alive please click here. If you would like to give money to women survivors of the genocide still working to put their lives back together, you can give here. As trite as it may seem, you may also want to join Amnesty International and write letters about ongoing conflicts, these letters do help and have saved lives. Also write Congress about passing S. 2279 the International Violence Against Women Act.

Senate Holds Hearings on Rape as Weapon of War

htp historiann. Updated Post

On April 1, 2008 the Subcommittee on Human Rights and Law held the first-ever Congressional hearing on rape as a weapon of war. They focused primarily on the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo!

As part of the hearings, they screened The Greatest Silence and heard testimony from the director, Lisa F. Jackson. Jackson asked the Subcommittee “Why has the world been so silent? Why in the last 10 years, has there been only ONE front-page story in the New York Times about the epidemic of sexual violence that is devastating the Congo? Why is it that rape in conflict is so infrequently prosecuted in the world’s courts? Where is the outrage?”

Congolese Doctor, and head of the only major hospital treating rape survivors, Denis Mukwege also spoke to the subcommittee. Dr. Mukwege said, “This type of sexual terrorism is done in a methodical manner by armed groups. The rapists are not seeking to satisfy some kind of sexual desire, but to destroy her family and destroy her community.” He works to repair women’s bodies when they have had the lining of their uterus and the urinary tract torn open by a gun/knife/piece of wood/etc. by soldiers, a common practice post-rape.

Karin Wachter, who helps provide support to survivors through the International Rescue Committee, and Dr. Kelly Dawn Askin who also works at Panzi Hospital also spoke at the session.

I hope that these meetings represent a powerful shift forward in U.S. policy and understanding of sexual assault as part of war. I am however given pause by the fact that some in the U.S. military continues to engage in sexual assault of its own female troops (27% of females report assault in the military) and that whole sex industries have grown up around U.S. military conflicts, most notably in Southeast Asia.

Senator Biden introduced Senate Bill S. 2279 The International Violence Against Women Act in October of last year. It has still not been ratified. It has been read twice and referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations but not voted on. Should the bill be ratified, it would make it possible to prosecute perpetrators who immigrated to the U.S., include violence against women prevention programs in aid packages, establish a bureau to investigate and make recommendation to the U.S. government to help ensure women’s rights globally. Read the short version or the full text of the act. Hillary Clinton is among the 13 co-sponsors of the bill, Obama is not. Senator Obama co-sponsored Senate bill S. 2125 addressing sexual violence, trafficking, health, and economic reforms as well as ending the war in the DRC by increasing the monies spent on aid by 25%, establishing a U.S. special envoy to the Congo, and encouraging a heightened presence in the UN Peace Keeping force. It was signed into law by Bush in Dec. of 2006.

May 30, 2008 is the International Stop Military Rape Awareness Day. If you would like to read more about sexual violence as a tool of war, besides the resources here and in the Greatest Silence post, you can also check out the UN Stop Rape Now Campaign site. or the UN 2007 essay on the legacy of rape in the Congo. Please work to raise awareness about sexual assault as weapons of war whether turned outward or on one’s own people.

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• quotes from FMF
• stat from SMR
• image of violence IRC Blog taken by women villagers

Senate Hearings for Show

updated post (updates marked)

If you believed Congress actually cared whether or not N. America lived up to the ideals set for this nation and for democracy around the world then you clearly missed it when Blackwater’s contract was renewed by the democrat controlled Congress. update: By the way, investigators and Nancy Pelosi were “protected” by Blackwater while visiting Iraq and doing their investigation according to Scahill. (scroll to bottom for interview with Jeremy Scahill, writer of the Blackwater book I mentioned reading earlier this summer.)

• # of soldiers in Iraq: 156,000
• # of contracted mercenaries from private companies: 182,000

(end of update/updated videos at bottom; stats from Scahill’s report to Congress)

• American casualties in Iraq: 4,000 – 4,023
• American injuries in Iraq: 29,628
• Coalition casualties: 309
• Iraqi deaths: 89,000 – 1,197,469

(stats from BBC and AntiWar as of April 7, 2008)

While Blackwater remains employed and continues to make it possible for the war to continue, N. Americans are steadily losing their jobs and the Iraqi and Afghani infrastructures are almost completely destroyed.

• # of jobs by spending $1billion on defense: 8,555
• # of jobs created by spending $1billion on health care: 10,779
• # of jobs created by spending $1billion on education: 17,687
• # of jobs created by spending $1billion on mass transit: 19,795

(stats from Yes Magazine Spring 2008/ Econ Dept. UMass Amherst)

• current national unemployment rate: 4.8% (Feb 2008)
• net loss for 2008 as of February: 195,000 jobs

(stats from Federal Bureau of Labor)

• Foreclosure rate: 2.04% (highest in 50 years)
• Owner equity: down 50% (lowest since 1945)
• percentage of home owners behind in their payments: 5.82% (highest since 1985)

(stats from Washington Post)

more info on Blackwater? read my previous post: here (history/links) and here (Blackwater patrolling US soil).

It is also going over really well with Iraqis ensuring all kinds of cooperation is in store . . .

Instead of asking about pastors and sniper fire, maybe we should be asking candidates about using private firms to fight wars, police U.S. borders, and provide mediated relief in disasters on our soil. Naaahhh.

Scahill Interviews

Embracing Easter in Troubled Times

Though some may bristle at Easter and all of the “holiday christians” jacking up the price of brunch today, I urge you to remember the spirit of this day. Both its “pagan” foundation and its Christian “overlay” celebrate the rebirth or renewal of life and the chance to begin again washed clean. Where the former sees this promise in the earth and the season of Spring and the latter in the resurrection of the Saviour and His Grace, both call to us to embrace life anew and to be better people in the process. Though I have had a life affirming, insular, week in Tejas, I can’t help but think about the tenure discussion of the other conference, the torturous death of Dorothy Dixon, the ongoing issues of oppression and displacement around the world, etc. and think there could be no better time to embrace the meaning of Easter. Whether you look to the Lord or inside yourself for strength and hope, look today and then walk boldly into the coming dark days.

A More Perfect Union?

I’m blogging from my cellphone this afternoon from Tejas with the help of my lunch buddies b/c somethings have to be said:

• Yesterday Barack Obama gave the following speech about race in N. America: download pdf of text
• By early evening Rachel Maddow said “I am sick of hearing about race” but then praised the speech as something profound, intelligent, and timely
• Several commented well into the night that it was “a brave speech,” “a needed speech,” “a speech only Obama could make,” and that it would win him no favors with white America
• Today AP is reporting Obama’s lead in the upcoming primaries is “all but faded away.”

If no other day in the recent election has been sad today’s polls are certainly the saddest. This moment + Ferraro’s comment “I think they are attacking me b/c I am white. How ’bout that?!” do not surprise me but instead leaves me wondering if Lincoln’s powerful speech so long ago was wrong: A house divided has surely stood. It has stood on this broken bridge of all my sisters and brothers backs far too long.

update:

I’ve put the video version of the speech below for those who don’t want to or can’t download the pdf.  I have also included Richardson’s endorsement of Obama which addresses some of the issues of solidarity, character, etc. that have come under fire. Finally, I have resisted the urge to give you the entire speech from Rev. Wright which if you go to you tube and watch it, you will see, that his soundbites have been taken so thoroughly and so inexcusably out of context that it mirrors the moment in Heathers when Christian Slater’s character underlines “Eskimo” in Moby Dick and people think they can find meaning there. I don’t want this to turn into a discussion of Wright did or did not say instead, I have included a final video from one of the other pastors of Obama’s church highlighting all of the church’s work that has been eclipsed by this controversy. I think if you compare the Pastor’s words with what Obama and Richardson say, you will see a pattern of people calling for us to focus on the things that matter to all of us in this country (the economy, war, health care, education, etc.) in the face of those who would redirect us with sensationalism.

Obama’s Speech

Richardson’s Endorsement

Another Pastor at Trinity Church (It’s a mega-church there are many Pastors)

As I said before, had I not been on blog hiatus trying to do this post on a cellphone, I would have taken a day of silence to show my disappointment at how easily mislead and divided we are as a nation. I am not a member of the “cult of Obama” in fact, I find those who are a little frightening. As I have said before, my candidate dropped out of the race and I remember the Clinton era more fondly than many. My point has always been the same: we need to be critical thinkers about our leadership, our nation, and our election.  Whether it is soundbites edited to the point of purposeful obfuscation or sexist dismissals, whether they are circulated by the media or via email traced back to a particular campaign, we have to be smarter than the political machine(s). I have a lot of posts about the democratic candidates stances on the key issues.  Many have come from watching the debates and writing down their answers or from their own speeches and websites. You can find the information here or you can look it up, just don’t let youtube, wikipedia, and Fox News be your guide. You’d fail a class on that kind of shoddy research imagine how you could fail the nation . . .