Filed under: Books, War | Tags: Bryan Mealer, Congolese women, Dr. Mukwege, Eve Ensler, Halliburton, The Congo
I highly recommend the Feb. 9th broadcast on www.democracynow.org. It interviews a Congolese doctor who has opened the only hospital in the Congo open to the thousands of women raped everyday as an act of war. This is something that has received very little press coverage in the US.
(This is an excerpt from the broadcast, but I highly recommend watching the whole show at their website.)
Also on today’s show was an interview with Pratap Chatterjee, author of Halliburton’s Army. He is an expert on corporate crime, and outlines the rise of contract employees in American military through Halliburton and KBR.
Halliburton’s Army: How a Well-Connected Texas Oil Company Revolutionized the Way America Makes War
What I find interesting in the connection between these two stories, is how clearly they outline economic disparity between countries. Chatterjee describes how Fijian truck drivers hired by KBR are paid $170 a trip to risk their lives to bring supplies into Iraq, while American contracters hired for the same job are paid upwards of $100,000 and given military protection.
In the Congo a massive civil war has been raging, largely funded by American backed Rwandian military, and woman are the major targets. But women are not worth anything in a war market. It is not cost effective to fund hospitals or provide police protection for Congolese women. For anyone thinking this has nothing to do with them, the war has been vastly elevated by foreign control of coltan mines – a naturally occurring metallic substance used in the production of cell phones, laptops, and play stations.
Power to Women and Girls of the DRC
<img src=” 
” alt=”” />All Things Must Fight to Live: Stories of War and Deliverance in Congo
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