More Vicious Than Rape

[doc_bean]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15704030/site/newsweek/

It had been no secret that nearly all sides in the Congo's complex civil war resorted to systematic rape among civilian populations, and estimates were as high as a quarter million victims of sexual assault during the four-year-long conflict. But once fighting died down, victims began coming out of the jungles and forests and their condition was worse than anyone had imagined. Thousands of women had been raped so brutally that they had fistulas. They wandered into hospitals soaked in their own urine and feces, rendered incontinent by their injuries. "Pastors would say to me, 'Jo, I can't preach because the church is too smelly," says Dr. Jo Lusi, a gynecologist and medical director at HEAL. (He and Lyn Lusi are husband and wife.) "No one wanted to be around them. These women were outcasts even more than rape victims usually are. They would say to me, 'Dr. Jo, am I just a thing to throw away when I smell bad?' "

This place has become too occupied with hilarious stories and silly politics that won't matter in the end. Let's not forget there are more serious issues out there.

[Banquo's Ghost]

It is indeed horrific and tragic. This is one of the world's forgotten wars, completely under-reported.

What to do about it is much more complex. Aside from the issues of arms sales and diamond finance, what intervention will stop this? Certainly no military or economic solution presents itself.

[doc_bean]

Stop letting Belgium feel important there for one.

I swear I hate our politicians who claim to be fit for certain functions based on Belgium's experience with Congo. LOOK AT HOW YOU HANDLED THAT !
Stop the mass support for both sides, stop the arms dealing, stop the diamond trafficing, stop acting like a civil war is normal after an election, etc.

Stop threating it like our little experiment.


For a start, of course.

[yesdachi]

A bear trap inserted into each woman’s vagina would be a nice start.

Out of sight, out of mind doesn’t really make the disgusting things that happen go away.

[caravel]

Unfortunately they're not in the Middle East, there's no islamic terrorists out there, so the western media aren't interested in the place.

[Mithrandir]

0-tolerance on this thread.

This is just disgusting, as is all form of rape /sexual assault.

[Ice]

0-tolerance on this thread.

This is just disgusting, as is all form of rape /sexual assault.

Yes, it is. I really wish rape was a punishable by death in this country. There really is nothing i dispise more. Something really does need to be done. This really is a moral issue that needs solving by the world.

[GoreBag]

Well, I did not know what a fistula was.

[Tribesman]

Let's not forget there are more serious issues out there.

Yep , and you certainly came up with a big one there .

So you have a press report , it comes from a town in a country that is wracked with long term violence and atrocities with lots of different domestic factions involved .
To complicate things further it is full of refugees , some of which are very nasty war criminals from a neighbouring conflict that certainly had no shortage of real nasty stuff happening (and it still is), add in some rather dodgy (to say the least) groups from the conflict to the south and a couple more just for fun from the conflict to the north east .

Could you have found a more complicated town full of very nasty happenings to choose Doc?
As that country which changes its name quite often is one hell of a mess , and the East of the country is one real hell of a mess in the middle of the biggest mess around .

As Banquo said ......Certainly no military or economic solution presents itself.

Zaire is one hell of serious issue , but what can possibly be done .
Aid workers get slaughtered , peace keepers get slaughtered , there is too much money to be made for complete blockade to be applied , meanwhile the locals get slaughtered or slaughter other locals .

[Mooks]

Theres peacekeepers there? Doesnt sound like it....

[BDC]

Theres peacekeepers there? Doesnt sound like it....

It's a big place. As big as western Europe. And a lot is forest or very remote. A few thousand peace keepers won't do much there.

Besides no one cares, it's in deepest remotest Africa. There was enough trouble getting Europe to pull the finger out over Bosnia, with TV cameras, with it right on the doorstep. Nothing is going to happen over somewhere this remote and distant. And whilst it's horrible to say it, the world is used to horrible things happening in Africa. Same reason no one blinks if a car bomb goes off in Baghdad.

Now there are probably some economic things that could be done. Forcing foreign companies to act more responsibly and pressuring neighbouring countries to stop interefereing. But not directly.

[Incongruous]

I actually vomited, just a little.

I'm sitting behind my comp desk, reading these things off a flash new screen, I usually feel completley apart from what scans across my monitor.
Yet, with this I lost all control really.

What's worse is that in all honesty I have never really known about what has gone wrong with the Congo.

Something I plan to remedy straight away.

Does anyone know of any good books on this matter?

[Redleg]

Well, I did not know what a fistula was.

In the instance of this story I would have a tendency to believe that the two body parts that void waste, have become connected by the tissue being broken that normally seperate the two functions.

I know that is a general description - but it is the best way I could describe what is indeed a dangerous condition for women to have.

[AntiochusIII]

...

What drives men to such lows and yet live?

[Tribesman]

It's a big place. As big as western Europe. And a lot is forest or very remote. A few thousand peace keepers won't do much there.

Well they do do plenty , but it doesn't last .
It is a constant cycle of intervention , make a deal , pull out , someone else goes in makes another deal , gets rid of the people who made the earlier deal , start all over again .
An absolute (very) bloody disaster .

Does anyone know of any good books on this matter?

Bopa , any particular years/conflicts or just some general ones ?

[Adrian II]

Let's not forget there are more serious issues out there.

There is no harm in fun. Remember you came here on account of a fun computer game in the first place.

As for the subject, I have mixed feelings about such reports. I remember the Bosnina side in the Yogoslav war making similar claims. Official Sarajevo started out with a claim of 400.000 Bosnian women having been 'systematically raped' by Serbs. With full hindsight and after careful analysis, it turned out only thousands had been raped, not tens of thousands, and certainly not the number initially mentioned.

Reports about systematic abuse of women in war often reflect the mixed feelings about manhood i a culture more than military or political reality.

Which is not to say that Congo isn't in dire straits, or hasn't been since its independence. There is enough blame for all the world to share, but I think the Belgians (former colonizers) and various Congolese leaders are most to blame. Congo has mineral riches (uranium, copper, etcetera) and all neighbouring countries as well as all the international mineral consortia have always wanted a piece of the miniing action. De Beers is just as guilty (or responsible, if you want) as the KGB or the CIA, South African elites or private security firms.

Belgian journalist Colette Braeckmann has written extensively, and very well, about Congo's problems. I fear her books have not been translated into English, but they are worth looking out for.

[Kralizec]

This has happened as well in Darfur. Gruesome stuff

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

Fistula is a generic term for an abnormal connection between two parts of your body, so they should really be more specific. Just a guess, but I would say you would probably describe what these women have as a vaginorectal or vaginointestinal fistula.

[Incongruous]

Bopa , any particular years/conflicts or just some general ones ?

Well Probably a bit of both, I know of the colonial past so probably post-solonial conflict and such would be best.

[mystic brew]

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/boo...3357&pwb=1&z=y
Not so sure about the Congan situation, it's outside my area, but you could try this one...
it's about the Rwandan genocide, and pretty hard reading.

or this one about the South African situation.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/boo...12931297&itm=1

[Moros]

Stop letting Belgium feel important there for one.

I swear I hate our politicians who claim to be fit for certain functions based on Belgium's experience with Congo. LOOK AT HOW YOU HANDLED THAT !
Stop the mass support for both sides, stop the arms dealing, stop the diamond trafficing, stop acting like a civil war is normal after an election, etc.

Stop threating it like our little experiment.


For a start, of course.

I can only agree with everything. What a few stupid Europeans can cause. I wander how manny times the total death count and victim count - of all conflicts caused because of the European Colonies and other countries they artificially made - surpasses those of WWII+WWI.

See, the most intelligent, only civilized creature we know, man. I never knew what intelligent and civilized really meant.

[Lemur]

For anyone looking for a good historical grounding in the Congo, and a glimpse into how it got so messed up, I would recommend King Leopold's Ghost. Well-researched and well-written, although the subject matter is depressing, naturally.

A friend and I used to have a "Hate Humankind" book club, where we would each find the most depressing non-fiction and get the other guy to read it. We kept on it for about a year, and then stalemated. We reached a point at which the books were so sad and depressing that we couldn't continue our little game. Interestingly enough, the books that did us in were We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families (his pick) about Rwanda, and King Leopold's Ghost, about the Congo. Stalemate in Central Africa. Sort of appropriate, really.

[edit]

This place has become too occupied with hilarious stories and silly politics that won't matter in the end.

What matters in the "end"? The rock you kick will outlast Shakespeare. It's just as important to have a laugh as to fight the good fight. If anything, in the run-up to the midterm elections in the U.S., I felt I got a little too serious and dowdy. A few threads on necrobestiality and testes abuse do wonders to clear up that serious-politics hangover.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

A bear trap inserted into each woman’s vagina would be a nice start.

Out of sight, out of mind doesn’t really make the disgusting things that happen go away.

Argeed on the Bear Trap

But this is Really Sick how People can do this Crap,really is..

[Alexanderofmacedon]

Unfortunately they're not in the Middle East, there's no islamic terrorists out there, so the western media aren't interested in the place.

As for the rape issue.

[Hepcat]

That is what frustrates me, not only about the media not showing it, but people's ignorant refusal to acnowledge these sort of things. People hold this belief that there aren't any more horrors in the world, after 60 years we still get lectured about the holocaust and how horrible it was, yet people never state that things just as horrible are still going on in the world.

Remember the Holocaust, but also realise that there are other similar things still going on today. Whenever I try and explain that to people I am just met with disbelief and told, "oh but the Holocaust was 100 times worse."

I must confess that until I went to high school and started talking to my history and science teachers I never knew that there were so many atrocities still being commited because we are always taught that, those things aren't allowed anymore, so we assume that people do something about them. We need more education on these sorts of things.

[Rodion Romanovich]

...

What drives men to such lows and yet live?

Misery, poverty, starvation, overpopulation causes the war. The war, raging for a long period of time, creates a demonization and accumulated rage and hatred that drives the soldiers mad. Also add the fact that the war isn't fought against a hostile military, but against a civil population, because it's the population numbers that are the cause of the starvation, poverty and overpopulation. Because the war is fought at a comparatively low pace, there won't be a quick reduction in population size of a kind that would reestablish stability and remove the cause of the war. Therefore, the conflict will hardly solve itself, but continue for a very long time without outside intervention. The longer it rages on, the more desparate and mad the participants will get - we're now in a state when this has been going on for several decades.

I don't think peacekeepers alone can fix this. Since the problem is the too large population size compared to the food supply levels, a coordinated effort of birth control and supplying food from above, along with peace keepers, could solve the problem in the short term. In the long term, birth control and reduction of the population size is the only possible solution. As often is the case, mankind seems to prefer to carry out the birth control about 20-30 years after birth, by war instead of abortion and contraceptives. Unfortunately, they've chosen a kill rate which doesn't reduce the population size faster that it increases, so that the war state will remain forever until either someone decides to carry out a brutal large-scale genocide or someone from the outside is able to enforce birth control.

Here is a possible method for UN or other outside parties to solve the conflict:
Identify the fighting groups. Offer the leaders of all of them that if their tribes/groups and the cities they control introduce birth control which can be inspected by the UN, they will get military protection from the UN against the other groups, which would get relatively more numerous due to their refusal to limit birth rates and if the others wouldn't recevie protection they would be weakened by accepting the birth control. If all groups accept the offer, the UN enforces birth control by sending out condoms, teaching the population about how it works, and by sending out doctors. If someone exceeds his/her birth quota, he/she is to be sterilized along with all his/her children. UN peacekeepers would actively fight and try to disarm and/or kill all groups hostile to those who accept the birth control. Once birth control has reduced population size, create local factories for production of condoms, as well as schools specialized in teaching farming, logistics, food supply etc., and educate a few doctors that can assist in enforcing sterilizations. Introduce demoracy but with a constitution where it's illegal for a party to advocate the removal of birth control laws. Let the local population build up their technology from the inside. As long as they can supply themselves with food, they aren't dependent on foreign trade, exploitation and child work, and they can therefore calmly build up their country in any way they like - either without foreign trade and technological development, or with it.
Unfortunately this method isn't perfect either as by some it would be considered evil to have birth control, but at the very least this entire program as a whole would be a huge improvement compared to the current situation of low-intensity genocide which could any time turn into a fast, large-scale high-intensity genocide as was the case in Rwanda a little while back.

People in the western world, far from these events, perhaps can't relate to how shortage of food can bring out such evil deeds out of ordinary men and women. But also our own European history shows that shortage of food - even when it only puts a few percent of the population below the levels of starvation - will cause massive violence, murder, brutal rape and uncontrollable hatred unless it's only temporary and lasting over one or two years (i.e. one bad harvest is acceptable, but not a political situation which maintains such a situation indefinitely).