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NEWS & LETTERS, February 2008 - March 2008Woman as ReasonCongo: women's obliterationby Terry Moon What is happening to women in Congo has been expressed as "beyond description," but it must be described as it reveals that the new stage of brutal rape in Bosnia, 1992-1995, rather than the height of women's dehumanization, was but a step in its deepening. In 1993, in NEWS & LETTERS, Mary Holmes wrote: "There is no question that the systematic, organized mass rape of primarily Muslim women in Bosnia is a calculated act of the Serbian government's genocidal policy of 'ethnic cleansing.'" What was new was "the specificity of mass rape in the case of Bosnia where it is being used under Serbian government authorization not only to drive Bosnians from the land, but to eradicate their very existence." Now, in Congo--where 5.4 million have died since 1996, 50% of them five years old or under, and 45,000 people are still dying EVERY MONTH--rape has become so brutal that not only are women's reproductive organs destroyed, but so are their digestive tracts. Some, lucky enough to find medical care, undergo six operations to repair their injuries; up to 30% of rape victims test positive for HIV/AIDS; and 50% are syphilitic. Doctors Without Borders estimates that one tenth of the population dies each year. They report that "acts of sexual violence accompanying the carnage have been without precedent in their frequency, their systematic nature, their brutality, and the perversity of the way they're planned and staged." WHERE IS SOLIDARITY? While MS. MAGAZINE did run articles, and groups like the Feminist Majority are aware of the situation, there is nothing like the mobilization that made the world take notice and protest what was happening to women in Bosnia, which finally led to rape in war being considered a crime against humanity. The thought and activism that created the new awareness in the 1990s is seen by looking at March 8, 1993, when on International Women's Day (IWD) over 100 women marched through the streets of West Los Angeles in rage at the mass rapes and deaths of mostly Muslim Bosnian women. The demonstration was co-sponsored by The Women's Action Coalition (WAC), the Women's Coalition Against Ethnic Cleansing, members of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian women's organizations, as well as independent feminists and peace activists. New York WAC held weekly vigils outside the UN in solidarity with Women in Black Against the War, a group of women in Belgrade, Serbia, demonstrating against their own government. Women's groups in New York formed the Ad Hoc Women's Coalition Against War Crimes to provide aid to women in the former Yugoslavia and to demand that rape be prosecuted as a war crime. Although women have not mounted an effective campaign, the fact is that no group or nation has risen to stop this unprecedented tragedy unfolding in Congo. Perhaps the movement is exhausted fighting the U.S. war in Iraq and the turning of the clock backwards for Iraqi women; perhaps it is not seen as important to the Left because the U.S. government is not an obvious villain. Racism cannot be discounted as so much of the misery in Africa is left to fester, including the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, from which much of the misery in Congo flows. The silence from Western governments stems from the economics behind the carnage. (See Editorial) The "second war" was begun in 1998 as a cover for plundering Congo of diamonds, gold, hardwood, and coltan ore used in electronics. Military commanders, political leaders, the U.S. and other capitalists, and the international mafias combined to plunder Congo and covered their actions by employing armies from all sectors to create chaos and clear the land of human beings. But this economic reality does not explain the viciousness of the rapes. A Congolese counselor who works with women said: "This (sexual violence) is a whole war within the war--another kind of attack on the Congolese people." Dr. Denis Mukwege, one of two doctors in eastern Congo who perform reconstructive surgeries on raped women, explained how each armed group had its own "trademark manner of violating" women: "The Burundians rape men as well as women. The Mai Mai... rape with branches or bayonets, and mutilate their victims. The Rwandans...set groups of soldiers to rape one woman." A CHICAGO TRIBUNE reporter who conducted interviews with Congolese women wrote that it's "as if a war was being fought against the womb itself." WOMEN FIGHT BACK It isn't that women aren't fighting back--they are. In the midst of war, every International Women's Day since 1999, Congolese women's groups have fought against the raping of women and girls. Their leaflet in 2001 read in part: "Women say NO to sexual violence used as a weapon of war....The rape of women and girls, without distinction of age, by armed men in our villages must be punished as a crime against humanity. We have never wished nor planned the war in our country....Why do we have to be the first victims?" International Women's Day has deep revolutionary roots which we must get back to if we are to join with our courageous Congolese sisters. We must challenge this new stage of brutality and refuse to allow our sisters to suffer crimes that are "beyond description." This year, IWD can be the time to make our voices heard, loud, clear, and demanding: Stop the rape and murder in Congo! End the war against women! Now and forever! Our fight is for new, human, relations in Congo and in the world. |
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