Rosi

That's what they have been doing since time immemorial.

UN = the most unenviable place to lord over.

Except for WTO maybe. Poor Lamy.

karns

I am not sure on how accuarte my knowledge is on the history on what has happened in DR Congo (perhaps people will be kind enough to correct and improve my perception), but I believe it is important to consider it before finding a solution.

From what I know, a lot of the bad things to happen was a result from the actions of a man by the name of Mobutu, who had the support of the USA through out the cold war period, as Mobutu was seen to strongly oppose communism. Having the USA's support, Mobutu was allowed to do many things unchallenged and unopposed. The country was lead to disaster and the USA turned a blind eye, to save the world from communisim!

Now, due to it's richness in minerals and resources, unfortunatley, countries that do come in to help, end up leaving after profiting from DR Congo's natural resources. I don't think it is possible for DR Congo to improve with the help from other countries, of course, it doesn't have much of a chance of helping itself either.

Edgewaters

Alot of the problem stems from the fact there are rich resources there, and the locals have never achieved control of them. Foreign interests compete for control of these valuable resources by using proxy paramilitaries, bandits, criminals whatever you want to call them, to acquire them and get them out of the country.

To get local control of the resources, some group has to come along and fight the bandits. To do so, they need arms and cash from outside groups and ... well ... I guess you can see where that leads. Outside groups offer them arms and cash in return for diamonds or what have you, and the cycle continues.

Abiel

Thank you very much! A lot of opinions and smart answers.

Nick, you suggest to break DR Congo up in several countries - this is close to my view, actually to form an Tutsi country. But they are the dominating nation in Rwanda and Burundi. I don't think these countries to admit.
Vokshod, i agree with you.

The problem to me is - how to stop this meaningless genocide without encourage the other nations in the region to start killing tutsies?

Son of Cathal

If they were to break the congo up there would just be more fighting as neighboring fought each other for more land

karns

I agree, very difficult to draw up borders! In an ideal world, a stand-in government representing the different classes in DR Congo, organised and backed by the UN and member nations would be able to work towards some form of peace, but chances are, many nations and leaders/militants will see it as an opportunity to get rich from DR Congo's abundant resources.

Lucius

If the world wanted to help Africa, perhaps the best thing to do would be to get over our fascination with shiny things(I mean, the diamonds). Or if we must have shiny things of this sort, could we not content ourselves with cubic zirconium(or whatever it's called)?

I'm pretty darned ignorant about sub-Saharan Africa(among other things). Perhaps us becoming adults in this regard would not really help at all? Would it make things worse?

Rosi

I don't think getting over our obsession with "shiny things" will help much. After the Kimberley certificate was introduced, officially a majority of diamonds coming from that region are NOT conflict diamonds anymore. The non-conflict diamonds are fine, meaning people aren't killed in their mining process or the proceeds aren't used to fund any civil wars. I can't quote the exact number or percentage of the conflict diamonds still in circulation, but it's as low as 25%. I could be wrong with that figure, but you get the general idea? It's not that much of a problem now as it was before.

Edgewaters

Officially, yes.

There's actually no way of knowing if it's having any effect at all. Diamonds are easily smuggled across borders in their rough state, and then certified there. Plus, the sanctions just aren't being enforced anyway:

Weak government controls are failing to stop diamonds from fuelling conflict, according to a new report by Global Witness.[ii] The report, ‘Making it Work: Why the Kimberley Process Must Do More to Stop Conflict Diamonds’,[iii] targets the annual meeting of the Kimberley Process Plenary starting today in Moscow.[iv]



The report shows how:

· Diamonds from Cote d’Ivoire are being mined in rebel-held areas and are then smuggled through neighbouring countries to international markets;

· Liberian diamonds, although subject to UN sanctions, are being certified by the Kimberley Process and exported from neighbouring countries;

· Weak regulation of diamond cutting and polishing factories leaves centres vulnerable to the trade in conflict diamonds.

http://www.globalwitness.org/media_l...cess_must_do_m

Chernomen

In this moment in Kivu region are disposed the troops of UN, but it's a hard to controlled others territoties of the country. The british minister David Miliband talk about 1, 6 millions refuges. Consequences from conflict are more terribles than the war because now there are epidemic from cholera, starvation and misery. this is a film for UNICEF humanitarian supplies -