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Keith Martin, National Post, October 27, 2009, 10:30 AM by NP Editor

If ever there was a hell on earth, then surely it is the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). A staggering 1,000 people die every day from largely preventable causes in this forgotten corner of the African continent, and more than 6-million people have perished in the last eight years alone. In some communities, a shocking 70% of the women have been subjected to extreme sexual violence; gang raped or violated with bayonets and other sharp objects, causing death or lifelong disabilities.

The DRC is home to the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophe since the Second World War, yet it has received scant attention from the international community. The conflict is complex. It is partly rooted in disputes over land ownership, but mostly it is a battle for the vast natural resources the region possesses. Diamonds, gold and rare minerals are plentiful. However, few of these minerals are more important than coltan, an essential element that is used in the production of the computers, cell phones and other electronic equipment that are a ubiquitous part of our lives.

By Karen Allen BBC News, South Kivu, Published: 2009/09/02 18:17:58 GMT

It was midnight when Elise and her husband were woken by armed men in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Soldiers of DR Congo’s National Army burst into their shack, sent the husband into another room, and then raped the mother of five at gunpoint.

“They put their guns on my chest and said: ‘Don’t talk, don’t cry, and don’t complain’… then they started to rape me,” she said.

The perpetrators were not the feared militia of the FDLR, who are currently the focus of a major military operation in South Kivu.

They were from the FARDC – the National Army that now controls this area in eastern DR Congo.

It is an area carpeted with minerals such as coltan and cassiterite, which are used in the production of consumer durables and gadgets sold in the rich world.

But people are now beginning to ask: what is the human cost of a mobile phone?

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

GOMA, Congo — It was around 11 p.m. when armed men burst into Kazungu Ziwa’s hut, put a machete to his throat and yanked down his pants. Mr. Ziwa is a tiny man, about four feet, six inches tall. He tried to fight back, but said he was quickly beaten down.

“Then they raped me,” he said. “It was horrible, physically. I was dizzy. My thoughts just left me.”

For years, the thickly forested hills and clear, deep lakes of eastern Congo have been a reservoir of atrocities. Now, it seems, there is another growing problem: men raping men.

By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Writer Matthew Lee, Associated Press Writer – Mon Aug 10, 2:35 pm ET

KINSHASA, Congo – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called Monday for Congolese youth to lead nationwide protests against massive corruption and rampant sexual violence in the country’s violence-torn east.

Clinton said she would press officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo to address the issues. But she stressed that domestic outrage at graft and sexual assaults against women and girls was needed to help prod the government into action.

“You are the ones who have to speak out,” she told university students in Kinshasa. “Speak out to end the corruption, the violence, the conflict that for too long have eroded the opportunities across this country. Together, you can write a new chapter in Congolese history.”

Global Witness Press Release – 07/01/2009

Global Witness welcomes the UN Security Council’s recent passage of two resolutions that include measures to halt the illicit natural resource trade which is fuelling armed conflict in eastern DRC.

In recent investigations Global Witness has uncovered evidence that all the main parties in the conflict in eastern DRC – armed groups as well as the Congolese army – are financing themselves via the exploitation and trade of eastern DRC’s mineral wealth. These minerals include cassiterite (tin ore), gold, coltan (an essential component of mobile phones) and wolframite (from which tungsten is derived). The warring parties have all committed appalling human rights abuses against the region’s civilian population.

René Lefort, Le Nouvel Observateur (liberal weekly), Paris, France, Sept. 11-Sept. 18, 2003.

War, ethnic conflict, and the greed of neighboring countries have turned the eastern part of Democratic Republic of Congo into an utterly lawless place. And as if massacres and systematic plundering by armed bands weren’t bad enough, the horror of rape is everywhere, too.

“She came in last evening. Five armed men had raped her the night before, a few kilometers from here,” explains Mathilde Muhindo, director of a social assistance agency of the Roman Catholic diocese of Bukavu, on the eastern border of the Democratic Republic of Congo. “This morning, she was still crying. I cried with her,” says Muhindo, in whose eyes traces of tears are visible. Through a window outside her office, you see the profile of a woman, her shoulders slumped, her face buried in her hands, sitting crumpled on the edge of a bed. Looking away from the building, the eye meets an infinitely tranquil countryside. In the distance, the hills of Rwanda emerge from the mist, which lends a deep gray hue to the mirror-smooth waters of Lake Kivu below.