Back to the Heart of Darkness
Johann Hari has a searing, horrific look at life and war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It should be a must read. Brutal, nasty and short. Life, that is, not the article, which is quite long.I recommend his article with these caveats however.
It suffers from multi-culturalism, white man's guilt - which translates as an attempt to blame all of this ultimately on the West with its lust for technology, and contains at least two egregious attempts to compare these events to the "tyrants" in Iraq and the occupied territories.
Also, there is an interesting discussion of it in the comments at Harry's Place, some of which are sceptical of some of his results. Although, unsurprisingly, they all seem to accept the narrative of the comparison to the Occupied Territories without a squeak.
UPDATE: Meanwhile, Gateway Pundit reports on a new report of UN Peacekeepers Trading Food for Sex with Minors...Again.
This time it is occurring in Liberia. Last time, it was yet another horror, in a world of horrors in Democratic Republic of Congo.
UPDATE II: And speaking of UN Travesties, China is now pushing to become a member of the Human Rights Council, because the old council, the U.N.'s former Human Rights Commission, pushed things like Human Rights too aggressively to suit its members, such as Cuba, Zimbabwe and Sudan. It's competing for a seat against tough competition, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
But China's unique contribution will be the formal policy of "censoring the council's discussion of abuses committed by individual countries."
With a proposal like that, how can they lose?
posted by Alcibiades @ 12:52 PM
1 Comments:
One thing to note about Mr Hari's article. The Coltan that he goes on and on about has about 50% of world production coming from Australia, with another quarter coming from recycling. With other significant players in the market the DRC is in reality only a minor supplier (source: here).
The horrendous events in the DRC will not be improved one iota by reducing tantalum usage (the valuable stuff in coltan). All that will happen is that prices would collapse and the militias would have to push their workers harder, in even more inhumane conditions to make sufficient money to continue their grim warfare.
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