http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/5226772.stm

Africa's largest nation held its first true elections today, which went on peacefully with help from UN officials and troops. For a country who lived under the brutal Mobutu for decades following independence, this is big news.

Too bad they arent in the Middle East, then maybe the media here would care.

7/30/2006 3:10:40 PM

Africans?

7/31/2006 12:24:03 AM

Yeah, really sad considering how little attention the Congolese Civil War got considering it was a huge conflict with massive casualties. Some say it was proxy war for all of Congo's neighbors who were carving up the country to gain access to its natural resources.

7/31/2006 12:43:33 AM

Disgusting.

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jul2006/2006-07-28-01.asp

Quote :

"Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, leader of a Hema militia named the Union of Congolese Patriots, was arrested and placed in custody by the DRC authorities following the killing and mutilation in February 2005 of nine Bangladesh soldiers who were serving in the United Nations peacekeeping force in Ituri."

Quote :

"The ICC's Argentinean chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, alleges that Lubanga has trained children as young as seven to become guerrilla soldiers."

Quote :

"There have been mass rapes, assassinations, plunder, arson, mutilations, decapitations and cannibalism. Summary executions, even of hospital patients in their beds, and torture have been commonplace, according to the leading watchdog Human Rights Watch."

Quote :

"There have been many reports of Lendu warriors cutting open the chests of victims to pluck out their hearts. Such brutality has become the signature of the Lendu fighters"

Quote :

"Human Rights Watch has recorded many acts of cannibalism in full grisly detail "

Quote :

"All Ituri combatants have used rape and other forms of sexual violence as a weapon of warfare. These are among the crimes against humanity being researched in great detail by investigators of the International Criminal Court in the case against Lubanga. Mass rape of girls as young as 12 by all militias have been reported. Girls are frequently murdered afterwards or kidnapped as sex slaves."

7/31/2006 1:17:19 AM