How Millions Have Been Dying in the Congo by Neal Ascherson. The brassy title of Jason Stearns’s book, more like that of an old rock album than a history, comes from a speech by Laurent Kabila. President of the Congo from 1997 until his murder in 2001, Kabila had replaced the interminable tyranny of Mobutu Sese Seko with his own much shorter and more erratic tyranny. He said: “Who has not been Mobutist in this country? Three-quarters of this country became part of it! We saw you all dancing in the glory of the monster.” The remark is like Kabila himself: ambiguous, weirdly alluring, useless. It seems to accept that everyone with ambition will naturally be drawn into the dance around the autocrat, and yet (“We saw you all…”) to threaten those dancers with retribution.
Who are “we”? Jason Stearns himself does not believe in the glory of monsters. He does not swallow the rhetoric about a “failed state.” His book has been put together out of many dozens of interviews, sustained research, and Stearns’s personal experiences. On paper, this made sense. DRC_SpringEconReport.pdf?resourceurlname=DRC_SpringEconReport. DRC-Completion%20Point-EN1%2BIFM%20Final. RSCPB8-StabilisingCongo. The Congo Wars. The Political Economy Of Third World Intervention: Mines, Money, And U.S. Policy In The Congo Crisis. The HC Interview: Democratic Republic of the Congo. January 2012, Ntoto, North Kivu, DRC: Woman and children who sought refuge in a school after fleeing fighting between the Forces de Défense pour la Libération du Rwanda (FDLR) and Forces de Défense Congolaise (FDC).
Credit: Sylvain Liechti/ MONUSCO The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) faces multiple crises including attacks by armed groups, massive displacement, food insecurity and disease outbreaks. Approximately 1.8 million people remain displaced, mostly in eastern DRC, due to conflict. Last year, measles and cholera epidemics claimed more than 2,400 lives, mostly children’s. Conflict and insecurity severely affect the humanitarian response in DRC. In 2011, there were 177 attacks against aid workers in the Kivus. A serious decline in funding and resources also affects the ability to help thousands of people in desperate need. Fidèle Sarassoro has been the Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator in DRC since 2010. A: DRC has many humanitarian issues and challenges.
'Congo Masquerade' King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa.