Thanks for concise explanation. Flinging money at a problem often exacerbates it ….all with the best intentions of course. What can be done though? (No, AusAID mightn’t be the optimal answer).

I was fortunate enough to spend some years living in Africa and have utter contempt for anyone that thinks throwing money at the problem will fix it (such as the Live8 waste of time).

The major issues are tribalism, corruption and resource conflict (partly due to over population, as well as poor farming techniques). People need to understand that when one tribe takes power it literally owns everything and when an African President refers to things such as “my airport” he literally means it in the same sense as you and I would say “my house” or “my car”. The tribe in power will then try and wipe out their opponents, which is entirely in keeping with how they’ve been going about things for the last umpteen centuries.

Corruption, of course, is endemic. Again, we think of corruption as being a backhander for doing a political favour or two large companies conspiring to fix prices but in Africa it means paying the clerk behind the desk extra money so that you’ll get your driver’s license on time, paying the policeman who pulls you up and suggests you were speeding and so on. Politicians and public officials outright steal aid funds for their own - Zimbabwe is instructive in this regard. It’s a very different world.

In order to assist them we, the rich nations, need to make sure that we give them NO direct money. None. It only ends up being diverted. We need to only undertake development projects where our people are project managing and we need to tie aid to democratic reforms, at which point we can then give them greater access to markets.

Until that time we should expect to see many more stories of human misery come from the Dark Continent.

Cheers
Jack

On the one hand I disagree that “The Congo is representative of the UN’s uselesssness but also of the biggest doner nation and most powerful country’s well targeted attempts to destroy it’s capabilities.” because this conflict began in 1998, as Brian mentions, largely as a result of neighbouring strife - before Bolton and the COW Iraq fiasco. On the other hand, the COW doctrine doesn’t make it any easier to align national interests with humanitarian concerns directly, which is why the work of NGOs are so vital and so honourable.

Last Friday night late I heard a news item on the BBC via Newsradio highlighting the 38,000 per month still dying as a result of the conflict. Please note that the UN has 17,000 peace-keepers, but it’s a big place and has a population of about 60m.

The Quick Guide to the war link from the BBC article is worth a look. Apparently the trigger for the war was the Rwanda genocide in 1994. It involved interference from the armies of 7 foreign countries at its height. Rich in natural resources it seems some of its neighbours were happy to hop in a loot.

It also appointed such wonderful characters as John Negroponte and John Bolton as it’s reprentatives, men not exactly sympathetic to the UN’s mission, to really stuff the organisation. Kofi is up to his arse in alligators trying to save the organisation from the Americans and the UN’s endemic and myriad other problems related to it’s now useless and less than democratic structure.

Of course I also blame all member nations, many of who are stone carrying kettles and pots living in glass houses.

The Congo is representative of the UN’s uselesssness but also of the biggest doner nation and most powerful country’s well targeted attempts to destroy it’s capabilities.

Now where is my prize? A pony perhaps?

Personally I always wear Raybans.

http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/monuc/

didn’t recognize you with the shades on man. They Oakley’s?

While we are off topic on Oakley’s. I went to two weddings over the past coupla weeks and almost to a man every dude is wearing Oakley’s like Zoot. I don’t see dudes wearing them out on the street on where ever else. Is this some sort of Aussie wedding ritual thingo.? Don’t get it.

Mainly beause of the horrendous death count. It is.

The war nerd over at Exile did an expose on the Congo some while ago, which I forgot I had read. It ain’t pretty so caution is advised. However the war nerd does what i consider to be the best war reporting in the world.

Oh, by the way. You’ll like him as he hates Bush and Cheney with vengence.

Exile is, get this, an alternative English written newspaper from Moscow. The War Nerd is their fat “war-correspondent” living in that other stinking hell hole: Fresno California.
Mark, don’t worry the War nerd is always making cracks about his weight problem and how he was drawn to wars because he can never pick up chicks because he is obese.

Here’s the link:
http://www.exile.ru/2003-March-03/war_nerd.html

Phil:

Truth is, the Congo ought to be a UN mission if there ever was one. I am not being a smart alec by asking, but where are they? Should Kofi be all over this or is he too busy pumping gas?

Seriously this is s horrible story.

Mark:

How do we make a donations to the group you are donating to. Can it be earmarked for this?

There is no conflation even though there is a connection as far as global priorities are concerned.

As for your last para on why journos don’t report on a story, well that’s just plain nutty dude.

However in your own weird way you have served to highlight the misallocation of resources I alluded to, even on the small journalistic scale you describe, it shows how Iraq sucks much needed oxygen and resources from other worthwhile stories.

Front page real estate or for that matter the first 12-15 pages of the NY Times that are supposed to be devoted to foregn reporting is not all about Iraq. In other words why hasn’t it made the MSM?

I think the truth as to why it hasn’t been reported is more boring than that. Journalists are not going to an African hell hole unless they have some form of protection and there is a decent hotel of some international standard, which they can use as a base. They want a shower, ok food and if male journalists are traveling alone a chance at having safe sex without the risk of infection with female indigs. If the foreign editor can’t deliver they would rather stay at home or simply go to Iraq where at least being imbedded means they are protected.

And yes, it’s a great tragedy that such situations aren’t accorded the coverage they deserve. If they were, perhaps there would be some pressure from the public for the West to do something (see also Darfur…).

More telling is why haven’t we really known about this unil now? I wasn’t aware of this until now and I bet most people reading the dailies wouldn’t be either.

Did you know about this? How?

In fact it shows the opposite of your provikin comment. It demonstrates that the focus on death tolls appear on the front pages only when the US is involved. No?