Eng 289 - the Congo

Preshus Anderson

Professor Vivian Teeter

English 289

4/5/17

The Congo

        Where do I start, The Congo is as worse than I thought because there is no justice. While reading up on the website listed on the assignment sheet, I felt as if there wasn’t enough information listed for me. As I read up on the Armed Forces, conflict minerals, sexual violence and so much more, I started to wonder, where is the President? How could the United Nation Peace keeping mission be funded over 1.4 billion dollars annually, annually, and still no change?

        So, I had to search even deeper to answer some of these unanswered questions, it amazed me that I knew about a lot of what was going on but I didn’t know it was in the Congo. The first course of action that I took was finding out about the United Nations, and what they stand for, which is basically helping out other counties in need. Who funds the United Nations, well the tax payers do, even though there has been some argument that the United States pays way more than any other member. The United Nations is funded 4.9 Billion a year, and 1.4 billion goes into the mission in the Congo “(2009. Russell).

        Reading through the articles helped me come to the conclusion of the problem, everyone wants power and money, and in order to do that, they break down other communities to make them weak. The “they” that I speak of is the rebels, also known as the armed groups, who fight over communities, stealing young boys, raping woman and young girls, and slaughtering innocent people to inflict fear (Enough Project). It makes one wonder, why don’t the boys stand up for themselves and do what is right? Well, it’s easier said than done, I watched a movie on Netflix not too long ago, called “A Beast Of No Nation” were is shows a little boy watching his family killed and he is taken away by a rebel group and trained to be a soldier. The little boy goes on to kill people, rape women and take over villages. When I looked into the summary of the film, it did not say where the story took place at but it did say South Africa. He never once stood up against the leader, because he feared that he would be killed the longer he stayed in the armed group the more he accepted the lifestyle.

        These Rebels take over communities that are known for conflict materials, they force the people to work so that they can get money. At one point in March of 2009, a peace treaty was drawn up, which stated that the rebel groups would put down their weapons if the government gave amnesty to the members of M23, integration of rebels into the army, police forces to protect communities and more. The problem is that the rebels felt as if the government didn’t hold up their side of the deal when they arrested one of their well-known leaders (Long 2013). Through this all, I’m still wondering where is the president?

        The President of the Congo is Joseph Kailba, who is not a very favorable person, he came into power when his dad was assassinated. Kailba’s dad was a smuggler and a rebel leader himself, so you see why the President doesn’t play a role in much. There is currently some steps taken to better the Congo, one of them are called “The Mobile Court System”, which is where they hold trials for people who have accused of rape or any kind of sexual assault. So far it has come along very well, but that doesn’t mean that things will change overnight (Hall & LaRacco 2013).