Clinton’s visit rings hope for ravaged DR Congo

CONGO, Thursday

When Hillary Clinton steps off the plane in Kinshasa next week, she will be stepping into the wilting arms of one of the world’s most needy places.

Secretary of State Clinton’s trip to Africa postures the continent amongst the Obama administration’s top priorities and the Democratic Republic of the Congo the crux of it all. While many say the United States has failed in its attempts at Nation Building in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Congo, and its call for assistance, may provide the ultimate chance.

“We put together a government of national unity; we went through the democratic process; but we have gone through a terribly difficult period,” says Bene M’Poko, Congo’s ambassador to South Africa.

The Congo has constantly been accused of not helping itself, especially by neighbouring Rwanda, with whom most of its problems originate. But the country, which has been credited as wasting its potential maybe more so than any other country on the planet, says that it is doing all it can, and asks for others to help. The first task is defence.

“Out major weakness now is the national army,” says M’Poko. “We don’t have the resources ourselves, that why we need to help others.”

Congo in the last year has become a caricature of itself. It is set with a daunting, if not impossible task; to somehow reverse a legacy of violence and insurgency that has continued up to this day (President Kabila’s father emerged as a guerilla fighter). Last year, an ethnically-based Tutsi warlord, Laurent Nkunda, long suspected of being backed by neighbouring Rwanda, almost toppled the Kinshasa government, reducing President Joseph Kabila to a virtual grovelling for help.

But in the last six months, Congo has made a shocking about-face, forging an alliance, out of necessity if not will, with Rwanda to tear down rebel infrastructures in the region. The two countries have reopened embassies and are negotiating a joint-energy project in Lake Kivu.

“It’s a work in progress,” said Ambassador M’poko in a telephone interview. “The most important thing is to achieve a peaceful co-existence with Rwanda progressively.”

The international community, the ambassador says, played a major role in bring a peaceful resolve to the tensions betweens the two countries. Now, Congo wants them to continue.

“The armed groups are still creating problems,” he says. “We need training of our national army.”

Congo is hoping the Americans can do that. As it stands now, the Congolese army is a hodge-podge of militia groups integrated together. They have fought against each other, and now are trying to fight together against old friends. Some have not been paid in months. “You need to discipline, you need to make sure they are there to defend and protect.”

The same could be said for the United Nations, whose mission in the Congo has been notorious in its inability to defend innocent lives. “We would like MONUC to do a little bit more of peace making, rather than peace keeping.”

Clinton will also visit Goma, the icon of the Congo’s ills. Less than a year ago it was under siege by Laurent Nkunda. Now the volcano nearby is writhing with another rebel group, this one intent on invading Rwanda. Between the two enemies, the United Nations has played a submissive role, and rapes have mounted on all sides in tremendous, sick, cartoonish amounts.

Secretary Clinton is expected to make sexual violence the keystone of her trip to the country.

“The secretary is deeply concerned about the gender-based violence which is occurring in the eastern Congo,” says the US assistant secretary of state for Africa, Johnnie Carson.

“She will underscore America's commitment to try to end this gender-based violence and will meet with some of the victims who have suffered from it,” he said.

The numbers are dizzying; 536,000 displaced in South Kivu province alone. Nearly 8,000 cases of rape last year by the national army alone. A 3-year old raped and left for dead in early June.

Most recently, the United Nations itself sent a team of investigators to eastern Congo to check up on new allegation of sexual violence by the peacekeeping forces.

That’s the bad news, and there’s a lot of it. But the tragedy of the Congo, and those that have brewed trouble for it in the past, has always been illuminated by its potential.

Congo still presents itself as one of the most possible places in Africa, if not the world. With over two-thirds of Africa’s natural rain forest, a programme of eco-tourism and environmental protection will be at the forefront of its economic policy, specifically in regards to the African Growth and Opportunity Act, a special piece of American legislation that enhances trade with the continent.

“We have our minerals,” M’Poko says of the double-edged sword that has made Congo infamous. “We have fertile ground, and beneath it a new abundance of oil. We need to start developing.”