After genocide, before peace
Genocide in Rwanda had been under way for 48 hours when 36-year-old Monique was told by a friend she would be killed. Monique fled, but her 12-year-old niece, Geraldine, was raped that night, and took years to die. "Aids is the second genocide," says Monique, who lost 27 members of her close family in 1994. That doesn't include her grandfather, who was murdered in 1963; her aunt, raped and murdered in 1973; and her father, attacked and interrogated in 1990, who later died from a heart attack. Monique's family provides a gruesome snapshot of 30 years of cyclical bloodshed that paved the way for genocide.
Diamonds that spell death: Western commerce still feeds the war in Congo
Early next week a French-led contingent of multinational troops will pull out of the Congo town of Bunia after barely three months of peacekeeping. Thankfully, some high-level diplomacy at the United Nations by the secretary general, Kofi Annan, has secured a replacement force to serve a further year in an attempt to end the regional conflict which since 1998 has claimed more than 3.3 million lives.
Adopting abroad
Earlier this year I stood in the dusty doorway of an African orphanage in the Congo, rage consuming me as I watched two babies moan in pain. They were covered in flies and filth, misery etched on their faces. Their eyes were sealed with mucus. Tiny stick arms hung limply over distended stomachs.
For these children, there was no chance of adoption, let alone a new home with celebrity millionaires. Less than 100 yards away was the room they would move to within the next fortnight. The mortuary.
The Great Lakes, Adjournement Debate
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.—[Mr. McNulty.]
Ms Oona King (Bethnal Green and Bow): The issues relating to the region around the Great Lakes are incredibly important. A humanitarian catastrophe continues to unfold there, as it has for at least the past ten years. In that region, it is difficult to draw the line between the end of one conflict and the beginning of another. To put the debate into perspective, I shall explain some recent background. It is impossible to understand the conflict without considering the region as a whole.
The present conflict in the Great Lakes began in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and dates back to 1998, since when 2.5 million people have died in it. That figure is staggering, but the fact that we rarely hear anything said about it is even more staggering. I am thus especially grateful to those hon. Members who have given their time and made the effort to be here this morning.
