Analyse et réflexion – English

For a short while yesterday afternoon, the NGO I work for found itself at the epicenter of international media attention. US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton came to visit the HEAL Africa hospital to interview survivors of sexual violence and to participate in a roundtable discussion with women activists. Even though most of my Congolese colleagues did not know much about Clinton, they were glad about her visit because they understand its symbolic importance. No one that high up in the US government had visited DRC in years, let alone taken the time to personally meet the women affected by the ongoing conflict. Clinton brought much-needed recognition to their struggle.

Jean-Pierre Mbelu

“We wish to work with people for a better future and not with people who refer to the past.” An encouraging statement? It’s false!

Madame la secrétaire d’Etat des Etats-Unis d’Amérique,

«Nous voulons travailler avec des gens pour un meilleur avenir et non avec des gens qui se réfèrent au passé ». Cette phrase prononcée dans une de vos interventions à Kinshasa est affligeante et porteuse de divisions au sein d’une société congolaise traumatisée par une guerre sans fin qui dure depuis 13 ans. Les Etats-Unis d’Amérique, votre pays veulent travailler avec les Congolais, avec cette condition : ne plus se référer au passé, c’est-à-dire à toute l’humiliation que nous subissons depuis plus de dix ans, et peut-être depuis près de cinquante ans.

For a very good reason, servicemen and servicewomen should fight. This includes for British interest and vulnerable people all over the world. For a great job they do, they deserve a well treatment. They should also resist to be put in fire when lies occur in the minds of the political leaders. When lies have been proved in the so-called war of justice, is there any excuse of extending it while lives are misused? Instead they should put politics in fire when they realise their lead is out of good motivations.

I. INTRODUCTION

Truth commissions have been multiplying rapidly around the world and gaining increasing attention in recent years. They are proposed for different reasons and driven by diverse motives. They can be used firstly, for the purpose of national reconciliation and in the interests of the society; secondly, sometimes they can be used to avoid accountability or prosecution and merely to shield an offender from justice.

Francois Houtart is Founder and President of the Centre Tricontinental and Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the Université Catholique de Louvain.

Jacques Depelchin, Ota Benga,

As events unfold in DRC, the usual questions are being asked: who is responsible for the current war within the war, which never really ended in 2003, and its ensuing humanitarian crisis? In the pages of one of the most respected dailies of Kinshasa (Le Potentiel), well-known philosophers have offered conflicting ways of looking at, and analyzing, the conflict.

You’d think, to hear some people talk,
That lads go West with sobs and curses,
And sullen faces white as chalk,
Hankering for wreaths and tombs and hearses.
But they’ve been taught the way to do it
Like Christian soldiers; not with haste
And shuddering groans; but passing through it
With due regard for decent taste.

How to Die by Siegfried Sassoon

By Dr. Joseph Yav Katshung[i]

Introduction

In September 2005, world leaders at the United Nations endorsed a historic declaration that the international community has a "responsibility… to help protect populations from genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes and crimes against humanity" and expressed a willingness to take timely and decisive action when states "manifestly fail" to protect their own populations from these threats.[1]

Perhaps you've seen recent news articles about the Democratic Republic of the Congo and wondered to yourself, "what are Rwandan rebels doing in the Kivus?" Or you saw that Laurent Nkunda had announced his intention to "liberate" the entire country and asked yourself, "who is this guy, and where can I get a 'rebels for Christ' pin?"