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The DRC has been the venue for violence and oppression going back generations, from the infamous Belgian King Leopold's subjugation and enslavement of the population to harvest the rubber crop in the late 19th century through the overthrow of democratically elected nationalist leader Patrice Lumumba in the 1960s to the more recent days of Mobutu Sesi Seko's newly-named "Zaire" and finally "Africa's World War" of 25 armed groups and eight nations in the early 2000s. [...] the mining process creates wastes that soak into local soils or are dumped into local rivers, making toxic the water needed and used by wildlife and humans.
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I was an election observer for the Carter Center in the second round. As part of my observation duties, I met with officials from the political party UDPS, the party of Etienne Tshisekedi. The party, or at least one wing of it, had decided to boycott the elections, in part, because of who was taking part. The view of the officials I met was that [Bemba] and Kabila were warlords who should be removed from office before democratic elections took place; that it was unrealistic to expect a functioning democracy to emerge when the contestants were people with such a violent past.
During the second round, both Kabila and Bemba showed forbearance. Neither campaigned, though this was prompted primarily by security concerns. Despite the election law requiring a TV debate between the candidates, ...
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TP Mazembe gives nation something to cheer about
The Democratic Republic of Congo has been all over the news lately. It hasn't been good news.
Earlie...
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Supreme Court of Canada
Gouvernement de la République Démocratique du Congo v. Venne, [1971] S.C.R. 997
Date: 1971-05-31
Le gouvernement de la Républ...
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Any solution to the Congo catastrophe needs to be political, as difficult as such an accomplishment seems. The Congo's neighbours must be impressed that there will be a heavy price to pay for continued interference. The country's several leaders must be dragged towards some sort of federalism that can be peacefully maintained. That is a job that falls, unfortunately, mostly to the hapless African Union, which has called a summit meeting to deal with the Congo later this month. It is the frailest of reeds to lean on, but it may the Congo's only one.
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AFRICA'S WORLD WAR
Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe
Gerard Prunier
New York: Oxford University Press, 20...
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I'm telling you they are very, very, very excited," said Deo Namwira, president of the Congolese Community of Manitoba. "They didn't believe it at first -- they needed to hear it from independent and neutral translators.
The frail, culture-shocked couple had been living in misery in their late daughter's rank, run-down suite on Langside Street since her funeral in June. Ida Kipala had taken care of her parents, walking to their apartment three times a day to prepare their traditional meals, but died suddenly at the age of 66. Since then, the couple refused to return to their apartment, where they couldn't communicate with anyone or stomach the food that home-care workers provided. They struggled to get up the steep, narrow stairs at their daughter's place to go to the bathroom or to t...
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FOR THE BETTER PART of the past two years, Western media attention has trained an intense spotlight on Iraq. While the media fascination with Iraq is ...