Plundering of Congo’s ores threatens peace

Loory: The Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa’s third-largest country, comes and goes from the news, but the killing there doesn’t stop. In the past 10 years, more than 5 million people have been killed in fighting. That means every two days as many people are killed as those who died in the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. The tragedy in the Congo has moved from the time it was a Cold War battleground in the 1960s, through the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s when it was ruled by a corrupt tyrant, to the present when ethnic conflict has brought killing and “sexual terrorism.” In addition to the rape of women and children, according to Maurice Carney, executive director of the Friends of the Congo in Washington, D.C., there is also rape of natural resources. He and others blame Western international corporations for those actions, and they provoke much of the killing while they drain minerals and other natural resources necessary in today’s information economy from the Congo. There was renewed fighting in the eastern Congo near the Rwandan border last month. Thousands were killed. A truce has been negotiated, and a peace conference is underway. The United Nations has an 18,000 person peacekeeping force in place that has had varying amounts of success. What is the current situation in the Congo?