Congolese Woman Activist Testifies in Congress

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View brief excerpt from Lynn Nottage's "Ruined"

Congressional Hearing on Congo & Sudan

Congressional Hearing on Congo & Sudan

Date: Wednesday, May 13, 2009 2:30 PM

The joint subcommittee hearing on gender-based violence will take place at 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 13 in the Dirksen Senate Building, room 419. U.S. legislators will hear testimony about violence against women (particularly rape) in conflict zones, using Sudan and the DRC as case studies. The range of panelists will include: women from the DRC and Sudan, including Chouchou Namegabe Nabintu (journalist, DRC); experts on the issue of gender violence; and government witnesses including Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues at the U.S. Department of State, The Honorable Melanne Verveer.

Following the hearing, there will be a public reception in the Russell Senate Office Building, Hearing Room 332. Speakers will include: Lynn Nottage (winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for her play Ruined and an ESB Institute/Goodman Fellow); Ron Haviv and Marcus Bleasdale (award-winning photojournalists whose work is part of Congo/Women); and Senator Boxer. Actor Quincy Tyler Bernstine will perform a monologue from her role in Lynn Nottage’s Ruined.

Click here to tell Congress to pass The International Violence Against Women Act (I-VAWA)

Find out more about women in the Congo.

Women of "Ruined" to speak in Washington, DC

Congo: The World's Second Lung, An Earth Day Special

Congo and Climate Change - An Overview
By Rebekah Delling

Above the cacophony of, elephants, gorillas and the other 6,000 animal species living in peaceful pandemonium, a louder and more destructive sound is dominating the rainforest. It’s the sound of ax against wood coupling with the crack of falling timber. In the Congo River basin, an area once designated the “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad, a battle is being fought over natural resources and nature is the losing party.

However, nature won’t be the only loser in the war for resources. Besides the obvious damage un-checked logging does to the 60 million people, 10,000 plants species and 6,000 animal species depending upon the forest for survival, there exists the global threat of climate change.
Clear-cutting the Congo River basin rainforest, the second largest continuous rainforest after the Amazon, will have a direct and disastrous effect on global warming. This effect, according to the United Nations Climate Panel, will include more flooding, heat waves, droughts and continually rising oceans.

Read entire article and find out more about Congo's significance to the world's climate>>

Congratulations to Lynn Nottage

Brooklyn born Playwright Lynn Nottage became only the second African American woman to win a Pullitzer Prize for drama for her play "Ruined." The play depicts the struggles and triumphs of Congolese women who are trapped in a resource war in the heart of Africa.

Nottage proves that the Congo drama is a world story that is universal and deserves the focus and attention of the global community.

Read more about Lynn's prize...

Ruined at the Manhattan Theatre Club

LA Times Interview!

Bloomberg article on Lynn Nottage

Lynn Nottage Dramatises the Congo conflict: The Economist

Few Benefits to the People of Congo From Mining Review

The Carter Center says that the people of the Congo will realize few benefits from the two-year mining review process with companies mining billions of dollars of gold, copper, cobalt, diamonds, and other minerals.

The Carter Center has drawn the following preliminary conclusions about the outcome of the process:

* Unwieldy: A major problem with the contracts was the vast array of divergent obligations that would be difficult to oversee and enforce even with a sophisticated regulatory apparatus, which the DRC lacks. That situation remains unchanged.
* Illusory: Most investors agreed to increased one-time, upfront payments; however, informed observers report that the payments are contingent and unlikely to be required under current economic conditions.
* Ephemeral: With the possible exception of conditions on debt financing for mining joint-ventures, there are no clear long-term benefits from the review. In the meantime, companies may still take advantage of weak provisions in many agreements to divert profits away from the investor company or to avoid paying taxes on real profits.

Read the entire statement from the Carter Center>>

Message of Support from Alice Walker

To my beautiful sisters in the Congo: I write to you today to send you my love, my deep wishes for your peace and happiness, for the prosperity of your suffering country, and all of its people, animals and vegetation.

It’s mineral deposits, it’s diamonds and its gold. Its magical coltan. May all be blessed and may all be kept safe and secure from rapists and robbers, murderers and mischief makers of all description. May all sociopathic warlords and dictators, with their incomprehensible and endless greed, be escorted to the border. It is the women of the world who will have to put an end to war, inviting those men who truly value us, and Life, to join our crusade.

The “Holy Land” we must retake is the whole of Africa. It is the forests, the rivers, the soil. Like our Liberian sisters who stopped the war in their country, and like Wangari Maathai who planted trees all over Kenya, we must use our wisdom and intuition to stop all the forces that are destroying us. We can do this if we stand together as women, allowing neither religion nor cultural practices to come between us.

Yes, it is women rising who will save the world, if it is to be saved. We are the ones we have been waiting for.
Alice Walker

Join the International Women's Day Vigil!
Learn more about women in the Congo!

Has Kabila Been Chastened and China Thwarted?

When rebel leader Laurent Nkunda launched his offensive against the people of the Congo in the Fall of 2008, one of his demands was that the Congolese government renegotiates its $9 billion deal with the Chinese. We reasoned on these pages that the root of Nkunda's demand had two possible sources: 1. He was trying to curry favor with the West because he knew the West was against the deal or 2. He was in fact being backed by the West via Rwanda to send a message to President Kabila that he needs to get back on the plantation for he had strayed too far in signing such a far-reaching deal with the Chinese.

Now that President Kabila has been apparently chastened (he has allowed Rwandan troops on Congolese soil due to Western pressure, mainly the US), we learn via the Financial Times that the West has ratcheted up its pressure for Congo to renegotiate its deal with the Chinese. Led by the Paris Club, International Monetary Fund and World Bank, the West is unleashing its multi-lateral institutions on the people of the Congo.

One would have to have his/her head in the sand not to see the geo-strategic game being played out on the backs of the Congolese people. Nearly six-million dead, hundreds of thousands of women systematically raped as a weapon of war, and crushing poverty are not sufficient for the vampires sucking the blood of the people of Congo. People of conscience and good will throughout the globe must come to the side of the Congolese people as they weather the onslaught from an international cabal crushing them like grapes. We can no longer be silent in the face of such depredation. Break the Silence and take action now>>>