Today we started off class with Shannon, Morganne, and Courtney's presentation. The conflict in Congo, known as the African World War is the worst since World War 2. Basically they are experiencing a civil war because all of the different tribes are fighting against each other, much like the north and south fighting over slavery in the U.S. during the 1800's. The people there are fighting over minerals, land, and resources. Many of them are refugees who have fled there to escape from the conflicts in Rwanda and Uganda. Every day, people would die from starvation, malnutrion and poor living conditions. The fights are very brutal and inhumane and the women get raped. The majority of children who die are under the age of five. Several different groups recruit young boys and force them to carry out horrible tasks like shooting and killing people. Overpopulation also adds to the conflict because the country is already poor enough and there is a lot of people crammed into one space, creating violence, malnutrition, starvation, and death. Roughly 5.4 million people have died as a result of disease and lack of food. The whole conflict began when Belgium gave Congo their independence in 1960. This made them very poor and they didn't know how to govern themselves. They eventually began a dictatorship in 1965 and named their country Zaier. In 1995 their dictator was overthrown and Cabilla took over, naming it the Democratic Republic of Congo which it remains as to this day. The United Nations has sent over a peacekeeping force called MONUC to help control the rebel movements within the country. The IRC has also been working with people to help rebuild communities and help them recover. Then we were going to start watching Hotel Rwanda but Mr. Bruns failed at getting it to work so we studied the Asian maps instead. That test has officially been postponed to Monday and Tuesday.
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