We the people must answer the call of the women of Kivu to appeal to the UN and to our governments for an end to the femicide and for peace in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Since 1996 more than 5 million are dead, more than 200,000 women have been raped — an average of 40 a day!
In this day and age, how can we let such a tragedy go unremarked?
And yet that’s the reality of the “invisible wars” which devastate the east of the DRC (in Kivu, Ituri, and elsewhere).
For more information, see:
- Special report (in French)
- International Committee of the Red Cross report on sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Denis Mukwege’s acceptance speech (in French) for the 2008 Olof Palme prize. Dr Mukwege is the director of the Panzi Hospital in South Kivu.
The women of Kivu have suffered enough violence!
They are calling on the citizens of the world to help obtain a durable peace for the entire population of the eastern DRC. They want to return to their homes and live in dignity with their families.
Help stop the femicide in the eastern DRC and call for definitive peace in the Great Lakes region. Please sign the petition today!
The real reasons for violence
Text written by the Rennes Collective of Support for the Appeal for Peace by the Women of Kivu
“If so many Congolese are dead through violence or abandon…it’s above all because Congo’s rich natural resources whet appetites,” writes Collete Braekman in her book “Les Prédateurs.” Indeed, the region is rich in gold, diamonds, cobalt, coltan, and oil.
She continues: “After September 11, the big powers – the United States, France, and the UK – decided that order had to reign in the world’s poorer regions. But even if the roles were changed, if new protagonists had appeared, the goals are the same and the interests of the people are always secondary. The fate of this coveted region is a prime example of the new global order. And the Congolese peoples’ resistance to the advent of globalization is exemplary.”
The invisible wars in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo are set in this exploitative context. The goal is to empty the region of its population to allow the predatory powers to more easily continue their pillage of natural resources, so the different players (armies and militias, foreigners and nationals) are armed for free. They terrorize and humiliate the local populations, often children but above all women, the primary victims.
In this region, rape of women is a tool of war. Indiscriminate of age, women are raped and mutilated on a massive scale, and usually in public. The goal of this violence is to drive them and their families from their land. In attacking women, the pillars of society, the entire targeted region is destroyed, people are forced to leave, and thus the immense mineral riches can be more easily exploited.
The Rennes Collective of Support for the Appeal for Peace by the Women of Kivu: Angola Congo Bretagne (ACB), Mouvement de la Paix, Déclic Femmes, Maison internationale de Rennes, Breizh Africa, Midaf, Amnesty International, UAIR, and others, including many individuals.
Contacts: paix bretagne à gmail com ou ACB ml kingansi à free fr et kikakasindi à yahoo fr.