Congo: Eastern Congo

Prostitution in the protected Ituri rain forest of eastern Congo is a lucrative business for Doudou Wangonda... known as Mama Doudou. Along with the various species of giraffes, monkeys, and elephants in the Okapi Faunal Reserve, coltan miners do what they have to do to survive. This is where Mama Doudou comes in. The miners need their rain forest wives to cook, carry their water, and share their bed while they are away from their real wives left behind in villages and cities. For a kilo of coltan, Mama Doudou provides a miner with a woman and they set up camp in the rain forest. If he decides he would like one who is better looking or if the woman spies a richer miner, they each pay a kilo of coltan to Mama Doudou as an 'infringement fee.' Either way, she is making more money than the majority of the country. Before the price of Coltan began falling, Mama Doudou could earn $80 a kilo, and exorbitant amount of money compared to the 20 cents a day the general population lives on. At the end of last year when the demand for coltan was so large due to the increase in demand of tantalum, refined coltan essential for the production of cell phones, PlayStations and laptops, Mama Doudou left her position as a traditional chief.

Source:

american.edu

According to the latest news, the government of Congo has signed yet another peace agreement with Rwanda's Nkunda (Rwanda signed another agreement with Congo not to aide Nkunda. It was not worth the paper it was signed on). This will not put an end to killing, raping, kidnapping and looting, especially the fraud of minerals from Congo into Rwanda! UNLESS KAGAME CONCEDE TO TALK TO THE HUTU (REBELS/OPPOSITION) NOW, THE SAME CONCESSIONS THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY HAS ASKED CONGO TO MAKE. TIME HAS COME FOR AN INTER-RWANDAN DIALOGUE NOW MR BLAIR, NOT A TUTSI-LED BUFFER STATE OUT OF EASTERN CONGO, RICH IN MINERALS!

Source:

congopanorama.info

Congo lies astride the equator, and virtually all of the country is part of the vast Congo River drainage basin. North central Congo is made up of a large plateau (average elevation: c.1,000 ft/300 m), which is covered with equatorial forest and has numerous swamps. The plateau is bordered on the east by mountains, which rise to the lofty Ruwenzori Mts. (located on the border with Uganda). The Ruwenzori include Margherita Peak (16,763 ft/5,109 m), the country's highest point; they are situated in the western or Albertine branch of the Great Rift Valley, which runs along the entire eastern border of the country and ... takes in lakes Albert, Edward, Kivu, and Tanganyika. In S Congo are highland plateaus (average elevation: c.3,000 ft/910 m; highest elevation: c.6,800 ft/2,070 m), which are covered with savanna. The high Mitumba Mts. in the southeast include Lake Mweru (situated on the border with Zambia).

Source:

topics.nytimes.com

Designed to end the armed presence of the ex-FAR/Interahamwe in eastern Congo, the Nairobi and Ngurdoto Communique was initiated on November 9, 2007. This process was enhanced on January 22, 2008 by the signing of a peace agreement at the Goma Conference for Peace, Security, and Development in the Kivus. Together these complementary processes work to reestablish lasting peace and stability in the Great Lakes region.

Source:

state.gov

In many ways, the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been an ethnic war, but ... a war over mineral resources. The DRC has vast wealth of minerals, particularly diamonds, coltan, cassiterite, tin, and copper. Coltan, short for Columbite-tantalite, is essential for the power-storing parts of cell phones, nuclear reactors, Play Stations, and computer chips. Coltan is increasingly exploited in the mountains in the conflict torn eastern part of the country. The Rwanda and Uganda backed rebels have primary control over the ore and are reaping huge profits which maintain and finance the protracted war ("Coltan" 9 April 2001; "Conflicts" 26 August 2001; Essick 11 June 2001). It is estimated that the Rwandan army made $20 million per month mining coltan in 2000 ('Conflicts").

Source:

american.edu

Donate to organisations working in DR Congo - A selection of humanitarian organisations responding to the crisis in eastern DR Congo are listed [H]ere. The list is not exhaustive, and is not intended as an endorsement of any particular organisation. You are of course ... very welcome to make a donation to our own International Crisis Group: we are an analysis and advocacy organization, rather than an aid-delivery one, but we depend very much on public support, as well as grants from governments and foundations, to carry on our work of conflict prevention and resolution.

Source:

crisisgroup.org