There is no question that the Jewish community has made
ending the ongoing genocide in Darfur one of
its most important policy priorities.
Not just here at the RAC, but throughout the Jewish community, Darfur is
an issue which we work on everyday constantly looking for new ways to help
bring about an end to the genocide and bring peace to the entire Sudan which is
stuck in what feels more and more like a perpetual conflict.
However, it is dangerous to allow ourselves to become myopic
in our human rights efforts -- to focus so much on the atrocity we know, that
we forget to see the problems that we may simply be less familiar with. For our community, the Reform Jewish community,
I firmly believe one of these conflicts that is too often forgotten is the
ongoing crises in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo.
As a word of background, the DR
Congo is a massive country which borders other conflict stricken countries
such as Sudan, Uganda, and Rwanda. Since 1996, according to the ENOUGH Project, a
leading advocacy organization which works on African conflict headed by John
Prendergast, “more than 4 million people have died from the ravaging effects of
war and its aftermath.” The Economist this
week tells of the equally shocking fact in an article titled “Atrocities
Beyond Words” that there were 4,500 documented cases of sexual violence in
the first six months of 2007 in the South Kivu region alone, and experts
believe that as many as ten or twenty times that many have gone unreported. In other words, in six months in one region
of the country their easily could have been between 45,000 and 90,000
individual acts of sexual violence.
Like with the conflict in Darfur, asking the question of what
the
United States
can actually do in the region is a difficult and complex one.
It is certainly important for the
United States
to support the UN Mission in the Congo (MONUC), the largest peacekeeping force
in the world, but it is also important that we support both local and
international means to bring to justice the perpetrators of these killings and
systematic rape.
But, before we can
begin to engage in advocacy we must commit to educating Americans, and in
particular those who have already become familiar with the atrocities in Darfur,
about other conflicts in
Africa.
People who know about these conflicts want to
help – but in the case of the
Democratic
Republic of the Congo too few people even
know that problems exist.
Let me be clear: I am not advocating that we choose to work
on issues in the DR Congo over Darfur. Our advocacy to help the troubled people of
the world should never be an either/or choice.
Quite to the contrary, our advocacy is incomplete if it is not focused
on comprehensive solutions to regional problems. I just hope that we can avoid the temptation
to look at problems narrowly as opposed to using the extended grassroots base
we have created around Darfur to help those who need it the most – in this case
the people of the Congo.
