I am reading yet another new report by UN experts on Congo on the African Confidential website and it looks like every year that passes the situation slips away from the world to the hands of criminals I mean international criminals all over Africa and Europe. China and some Asian countries like Thailand are new entrant to this scramble for Congo’s resources and lives that began hundreds of years ago.
The report has also put Uganda’s continued role in the conflict and also other European networks with links to the Catholic Church. Two Spanish ‘charities’ with church links are implicated but as I read the report, apart from shaking my head like a lizard, I wondered who cares? Not even we Ugandans know the exploitation of our own resources and where the money goes so how can we even put up a little meaningful fight for the Congolese people.
Just like the past UN reports, nothing has changed. The lootocracy continues and so do the killings and rapes. I still can’t hope to find the answers in the current unjust international system just like I can’t stop Ugandan army top shots from fuelling the conflict. It seems for now we stuck in this not-so-effective name and shame game. We can only spell out a few names we know of those whose hands and bank accounts are stained with the blood of innocent Congolese children, women and men.
Rosebell Kagumire 