The deadliest war in the world (Time/CNN)

[eppur_se_muova]

Congo's simmering conflict has killed 4 million
Sunday, May 28, 2006; Posted: 1:01 p.m. EDT (17:01 GMT)
Editor's note: The following is a summary of this week's Time magazine cover story.

(Time.com) -- Some wars go on killing long after they end.

In Congo, a nation of 63 million people in the heart of Africa, a peace deal signed more than three years ago was supposed to halt a war that drew in belligerents from at least eight different countries, producing a record of human devastation unmatched in recent history.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) estimates that 3.9 million people have died from war-related causes since the conflict in Congo began in 1998, making it the world's most lethal conflict since World War II.

By conventional measures, that conflict is over. Congo is no longer the playground of foreign armies; the country's first real election in 40 years is scheduled to take place this summer, and international troops have arrived to keep peace.
***
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/africa/05/28/coverstory.tm/index.html

[XemaSab]

1. Is this the Congo or the Shiny Happy People's Democratic Republic of the

Congo?

:shrug:

[bahrbearian]

2. Stealing from Siagon 68

Bring It On "Cried the AWOL Chimp".

[orwell]

3. And yet...

...we hear nothing.

Could it be...racism?

[bemildred]

4. I think it's got more to do with the fact that we are entirely satisfied

with the situation in the Congo. The extraction of natural resources in proceeding well with no interference from the people that live there or their ineffective "leaders". For contrast, consider the situation in Sudan, which gets much more press, and where the extraction of resources is contentious.

[orwell]

5. Stop making sense...

...it's un-American.

[cliss]

6. 3.9 million people......

That's almost the entire population of Norway. Can you imagine what the outcry would be if that happened.

And yet...nothing about Congo.

[Terran1212]

10. It needs more oil

[applegrove]

7. It's resource endowment.. equal to an oil rich country.. so it suffers

the same fate.. lack of democracy and outside interference for 40 years.

[eppur_se_muova]

9. Norway is an oil-rich country, but it's full of white people.

I'm afraid that by all empirical evidence it DOES make a difference.

[applegrove]

11. Canada has some white people. And mysteriously the Calgary School

of economics which parrots USA needs. Think tanks too.

Hey - big oil has gotten a little too much power in the U.S. of A. White people too.

[Igel]

8. Yep.

The steps necessary to wipe out strong tribal affiliations and rivalries weren't taken during the century or so of colonialism and the following half-century of despotism and strong-man rule. The local conflicts didn't end; they were frozen.

The difference is that the parties have new tech, so they can move large distances quickly, kill more people more quickly, and coordinate their activities better; they have more insidious ideologies backing them up; and there's a greater prize, since the mineral wealth is that much greater now, and that allows for greater funds for buying more tech. Having adjacent countries send in their armies didn't help much, either. It's also likely that the years in which the old conflicts were frozen in time allowed for some jockeying, as tribes could gain or lose political power without regard to military strength.