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Posts Tagged ‘Congo’

Three Notes on Congo

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; photo: Library of Congress

Things spotted along the way:

Did you know that Arthur Conan Doyle was a Congo activist? I spotted a mention of that somewhere and looked it up. Wikipedia confirms that he “was a supporter of the campaign for the reform of the Congo Free State, led by the journalist E. D. Morel and the diplomat Roger Casement.” The Free State was Belgian King Leopold’s name for his personal empire in Congo. In 1908 the Belgian Parliament gave in to international pressure and took over running Congo. Conan Doyle was in the thick of it, writing in 1909 “The Crime of the Congo,” which Wikipedia describes as “a long pamphlet in which he denounced the horrors of that colony.”

The second thing I noticed is an article from Agence France-Presse reporting that the new UN special envoy for the Great Lakes, Mary Robinson, will travel next week in the region. This will be her first visit in her UN position, and it will take her to the DRC, Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, and South Africa. Her goal, in conversations with the various national leaders, will be to come up with “tangible actions and cooperation to end the recurrent cycles of crisis and suffering in the eastern DRC.” She sets out on April 29 and returns home on May 5.

Mary Robinson; photo: AFP/File Justin Tallis

And finally I came across a very interesting guest blog on “Congo Siasa,” Jason Stearns’s excellent blog on Congo. The guest writers are Anthony Gambino, formerly USAID’s director in the DRC, and Steve Weisman, formerly the staff director for the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Africa. The post is titled “Time for a Change in U.S. Congo policy,” and it is logically and constructively argued. They first contend that the U.S. has missed some key opportunities to promote democratic development in Congo. Then they suggest an alternative policy including (1) promote greater democratization in several specific ways, (2) promote improved civilian governance, (3) promote improved military governance, and (4) promote conflict resolution in the Kivus.

That is way too brief a digest and their essay is nowhere near as simplistic as my summary makes it sound. I just hope it’s enough to make you curious enough to click the link and read it for yourself. It’s worth it. Now that you’ve spotted this along the way.

SAJ 26 Apr 2013

Road Trip: Stories from the Repayment Team

Leaders of the Farmers to Markets program have been working on ways of teaching the farmers that their loans have to be repaid. Unlike other microfinance recipients, such as micro-business owners in urban areas, many of the subsistence farmers who are at the core of FTM have little sense of the importance of repayment. So a team of FTM staff took the Land Cruiser and drove around to associations and homes of individual members. Here are three stories from that experience, sent to us by our Congo Country Manager, Texa Dembele. I’ve included the comments he added to each story.

Story 1. The man who is the first adviser in the APRIBU Association likes the FTM project. Every time we have a visit or activity in the association, he is always the first person to comply. Often he advised the other members to follow project instructions. When we arrived for the repayments, he was the first person who came with money and made a payment. He told the others, “If you get a loan you have to pay! You got this loan easily, you have to pay easily.” One woman took a lesson from his speech. She went into her house, came out, and paid the totality of her loan. The man saw and said, “Oh! How can a woman be first on the list of those who fully repaid their loans?” He returned to his house and brought back 3,500 FC (Congolese francs) ($3.80), the amount remaining due on his loan. They were the first two in their group who fully repaid their loans.

Texa Dembele, at right, with USAID officer Augustin Ngeleka

Texa’s comments: We congratulated the first adviser in the APRIBU Association, and I think he deserves to be first adviser. But you know, the first good example came from a woman. Her example encouraged the man to do more, and he finished paying his loan. We need to focus more of the action through the women, which is also the fifth objective of Farmers to Markets. Also, we need to push the people to pay back their loans. We need to go to them, to their house or the association, like we did on this trip.

Story 2. The FTM repayment team arrived at the ASALO Association. We invited all the members to come and hear why we were there. The chief of the delegation said, “We are here to recover all the payments due on your loans, and we will go house by house.” When one of the women heard that, she said, “No, I would not like you to go to my house. I would be ashamed to see the group at my house asking for the money. Wait for me here.” She went and brought back all the money she owed, 2,800 FC ($3.00), and she paid it. A man who had paid 5,000 FC ($5.43) of the 8,150 FC ($8.90) he owed saw the woman repay her whole loan. He said, “It would be shaming if a woman completed her repayment but no man did that.” He went in his house and brought the rest of the money.

Texa’s comments: We are seeing that the behavior of the women is correcting many men in the associations. When a woman has money to pay back the loan, she doesn’t hesitate. But in the majority of cases, the men hide their money for reasons that we don’t know. It appears that the women have a fear of not repaying the loan. If decisions about how to use money in the households can be made by the women, I think we could make huge progress. As in the first story, the fifth objective of Farmers to Markets is important: “to strengthen the voice of women in the family and commerce.”

Checking on the crops

Story 3. This is told by animator Guillaume Ngombe: When we arrived at the home of one of the Avad Association members, we found the guy and his wife. We said we were there to get his payment on his loan, which he’d had for a long time. The man said he didn’t have any money. I told him, “OK, today we will bring you to the prison. Put on your pants and climb into the car.” (We were in the FTM Land Cruiser.) When the man heard us talk about the jail, he started to cry. His wife told him to take the rooster they kept and give that to us as a payment on the loan. So the guy took the rooster and gave it to the team. The team bought the rooster for our dinner and put the money in the cash box containing repayments.

Texa’s comments: This story showed us that the woman often has the solution to a problem that comes up in the household. The wife of this man found the solution this time. She rescued her family. That’s a good lesson to share in the Associations. It shows, once more, the fifth objective of FTM. Also, the presence of the car in this campaign was a big motivation and fear for all the members of the associations.

SAJ 27 Mar 2013

One of Congo’s Worst Is Now Behind Bars

The other interesting thing that happened in Congo recently, that could give a bit of hope to those who haven’t yet given up on hope, is the appearance of notorious warlord Bosco Ntaganda yesterday before the International Criminal Court (ICC, for short) in The Hague, Netherlands. You won’t be surprised to hear that he denied all the charges that the court has been accumulating against him for more than six years — and they are legion, what the L.A. Times called “rampant atrocities.”

What’s even more interesting is how he got there: he walked into the U.S. embassy in Kigali, Rwanda, a week ago, and asked to be taken to the ICC. In a classic press statement the U.S. State Department responded, “We are working to facilitate his request.”

Now, this doesn’t often happen in Congo. Warlords don’t stroll in off the streets and turn themselves in to American diplomats. They fight each other for power and for control of the rich mineral resources in eastern Congo. Along the way they kill, pillage, rape, and/or torture anyone in their path, while forcibly conscripting children as soldiers. Bosco was one of the worst, having roamed across the landscape for 15 years, most recently as one of the leaders of the M23 rebel group. Until he turned himself in.

Photo: EPA/Alain Wandimoyi

There are several theories as to why he did it. The best analysis I’ve seen of the questions raised by this turn of events is by Jason Stearns, author of Dancing in the Glory of Monsters and of one of the best blogs on Congo, Congo Siasa. His post of March 22, “The Bosco surrender: more questions than answers,” is well worth reading. His basic answer to why Bosco turned himself in is, “His time was up.” He goes on to explain that “on February 24, an internal battle had broken out among the M23, pitting Bosco’s wing against that of Sultani Makenga. . . . While Bosco led a large group of soldiers––at least 500 were reported to have crossed the border on 14 March––he was short on ammunition. After weeks of fighting, he decided to run.”

Then he suggests another factor: “The final straw, however, appears to have been the looming possibility of a peace deal, or at least Bosco’s perception that one might take place. With an international arrest warrant looming over his head, and declarations by the Congolese government concerning his arrest, he knew that he would have no chance of re-integrating the Congolese army.” The M23 has been negotiating with Congolese and Rwandan leaders for several months, and, separately, a UN-backed regional peace agreement has now been signed, as we reported here last Friday.

Whatever the reasons behind this uncharacteristic behavior by a man known as “the Terminator,” Rwanda, the U.S., and the Netherlands responded promptly to “facilitate his request.” On Friday the 22nd Reuters reported that a person in the Rwandan capital “saw a blacked-out U.S. Embassy vehicle under police escort drive along the perimeter of Kigali’s international airport. Shortly after, a private jet took off.” Then the Rwandan foreign minister made the official announcement: “Bosco Ntaganda has just taken off from Kigali in custody of ICC officials following cooperation between Rwanda, US and Dutch governments.” She made the announcement on Twitter.

And on Tuesday the 26th — yesterday — Bosco stood before the international court and proclaimed his innocence. “The court scheduled a hearing to confirm the charges against Ntaganda for September,” concludes the L.A. Times article. “Such hearings decide whether there is enough evidence to proceed to trial.” That’s probably a pretty safe bet.

If you’re interested in reading more, start with Congo Siasa. Then here are some news articles following the developments beginning with Bosco’s surrender (including those cited above):

Wanted Congolese Rebel Leader Turns Himself In to U.S. Embassy (New York Times)
White House Statement on DRC Rebel Ntaganda’s Surrender to Criminal Court
State Department Statement on DRC Rebel Ntaganda’s Expected Surrender to The Hague
ICC officials en route to collect DR Congo warlord (US Agence France-Presse via ReliefWeb)
Congolese warlord flown out of Rwanda from U.S. mission (Reuters)
Congolese warlord Bosco Ntaganda denies war crimes in court (Los Angeles Times)

SAJ 27 Mar 2013

Next Congo Medical Trip Focus: Surgery and Anesthesiology

Three volunteer doctors are gearing up for the next Paul Carlson Partnership medical mission trip to Congo, coming in mid- to late April. The focus of this team will be on surgery, including anesthesia. And the pattern is holding true: people are showing up when we need them.

Several months ago we started talking about needing a surgeon to go over to both operate and teach, and right about then Congo veterans Kurt and Linda Lindquist — both surgeons — decided it was time for them to go back. As we talked with them about the needs that have been identified by the Congolese medical leaders, we mentioned anesthesia. Within days Bob De Master emailed saying he was (wait for it) an anesthesiologist and he’d be interested in getting involved. All three are members of the Paul Carlson Medical Ambassadors, our primary source for medical volunteers.

Kurt and Linda Lindquist

Kurt and Linda Lindquist are both general surgeons who were career missionaries to the Congo with the Evangelical Covenant Church from 1986 to 1997, until civil war forced the mission to close. Since then they have worked in Fargo, N.D., at the VA Hospital in general and vascular surgery, doing direct patient care and training surgical residents. Actually, their connection to Congo goes even further back, or at least Kurt’s does: he grew up there, the son of ECC missionaries Franklin and Margaret Lindquist — who were cousins to Dr. Paul Carlson.

Bob De Master is a board certified anesthesiologist with 30 years of experience, the latest 16 of those years in McMinnville, Ore. He has participated in two previous short-term medical mission trips to Karawa, in 2005 and 2006, and has also done short-term projects in Ethiopia, Cameroon, Albania, Gabon, Haiti, the Philippines, Peru, Honduras, and Belize. He holds a certificate for Physician Training in Global Health from the Oregon Health and Science University.

Robert De Master

The visit to Congo will continue the work of PCP and the Medical Ambassadors as partners to the Congo Covenant Church medical system. The trip is designed for three broad purposes: (1) help Dr. Richard Lingili, the CEUM Medical Director, assess the current state of the operating rooms, supplies and equipment; (2) offer surgical consultation and procedures to patients selected jointly by the team and Dr. Lingili; and (3) teach through both lectures and skills labs designed to improve the capability of the Congolese physicians and nurses. The combination of assessment, clinical assistance, and teaching follows a model that PCP has been developing and piloted last fall with the Helping Babies Breathe project.

Bob De Master says he has committed himself to participating in two short-term medical projects a year as long as he is capable of doing so. “I have previously been to the hospital in Karawa,” he adds, “and being able to accompany two surgeons who have served there as medical missionaries is an invitation that was very appealing.” For the PCP medical steering committee, the whole team came as gifts from God. They leave on April 15 and return to the U.S. on April 28. We’ll keep you updated as we get news from them in Karawa.

SAJ 22 Mar 2013

Congo Peace Deal Just the Beginning

For those who still have enough hope left to say the words “peace” and “Congo” in the same prayer, a couple of interesting things have happened in the past four weeks. Here’s one of them. I’ll comment on the other one shortly.

DRC’s Kabila signs peace agreement

On Feb. 24 an agreement backed by the United Nations was signed by representatives of 11 countries around and including the DR Congo. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was on hand in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for the signing of the Peace, Security, and Cooperation Framework for the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Region. Secretary-General Ban “stressed that the signing is a significant event, but only the beginning of a ‘comprehensive approach that will require sustained engagement,’” according to the announcement by the UN News Service.

In signing, the 11 countries committed themselves to protecting the peace, stability, and territorial integrity of the DRC. Those countries are Angola, Burundi, Central African Republic, Congo, the Republic of Congo, Rwanda, South Africa, South Sudan, Uganda, and Tanzania. At the signing Ban urged them to invest “your sustained political, technical and financial support, especially over the long-term, to accompany the implementation of the national and regional commitments outlined in the Framework.”

U.S. ambassador to the UN Susan Rice made the same point in her message welcoming the agreement, urging the countries to “address collectively the egregious use of sexual violence as a tactic of war, impunity for human rights abusers, the illegal exploitation of minerals, the prevention of further population displacements, and land issues.” She also encouraged the DR Congo to “seize the opportunity of renewed international engagement to uphold its commitments to an extension of state authority in the east, to security sector reform, and to improved governance.”

A group of 46 Congolese and international NGO’s (non-governmental organizations) issued a statement in which they summarized the agreement this way: “The Framework Agreement is based on two main points: bringing an end to foreign backing of Congolese rebellion movements, and fostering the comprehensive reform of state institutions such as the national army, police and judicial sectors.” The group commented that the pact “will be hollow without specific additional measures, including the appointment of a high-profile UN Special Envoy with the power to mediate on both a domestic and regional level” and other steps. That appointment was made on Monday of this week, and it appears to be a good one.

Mary Robinson

On Monday, March 18, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced the choice of Mary Robinson as the United Nations Special Envoy for the Great Lakes region of Africa. Robinson was the first woman president of Ireland, serving from 1990 to 1997, following which she became the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights from 1997 to 2002. The UN announcement of her appointment emphasized that she will “play a key role in supporting the implementation of the Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Great Lakes region of Africa.” Mary Robinson, who has long been dedicated to the cause of human rights, has already turned her focus to the problems, and the fragile new opportunity, in Congo.

Top photo: CNN, Jenny Vaughan/AFP/Getty Images
Bottom photo: UN News, UN Photo/Paulo Filgueiras

SAJ 22 Mar 2013

New Executive Director for the Paul Carlson Partnership

We have good news today: After a search process of several months, the Paul Carlson Partnership has appointed a new executive director.

Meritt Lohr Sawyer is a skilled leader with nearly thirty years experience in international nonprofit management. Most recently she was the international program director for the Langham Partnership (formerly John Stott Ministries). PCP president Curt Peterson calls her “an innovative and visionary leader with strong background and effectiveness in international transformational ministries, strategic planning, and fund development.” She has worked with programs in seven African countries, and one of our board members says it was clear to them that “Meritt is in love with Africa!” Congo, though, will be new to her. She will make her first trip soon.

Without a background in the Evangelical Covenant Church, with which we are affiliated (she’s a Presbyterian), Meritt had to do some research when a friend who is on the PCP board of directors told her about the position. After long conversations with PCP board members and ECC leaders, she came to appreciate the history of our work in the context of the ECC’s global awareness. She sees the Paul Carlson Partnership as an “essential bridge that provides opportunities to support a mission based in solid relationships beginning with Paul Carlson and furthered by almost fifty years of relational ministry and investment. . . . In the midst of global tectonic shifts in the worldwide church,” she adds, “PCP provides a historic legacy of relationships and reciprocity that guide our investments.”

Meritt in Ethiopia after being honored by village chiefs

Meritt and her husband, Steve, live in northern California, and they will stay there. That will mean some juggling for them, but in this age of the internet, virtual private networks, and VOIP phones, that won’t be as hard as it sounds. She will be in the PCP Chicago office for part of each month, and will also spend time traveling to talk with donors and prospective donors.

“I deeply respect the heartfelt commitment and approach to the Congo,” Meritt commented as she got acquainted with PCP board and staff. “It is the kind of team with whom I want to dedicate myself to the work of God’s Kingdom.” We are delighted and honored to have her joining us as we seek to serve God’s work in Congo, and we are confident that our friends in both North America and Congo will quickly come to appreciate her as well. She begins on March 4.

Welcome, Meritt!

You can read the news story on the ECC website here. If you’d like to send a message welcoming Meritt, you can either post a comment here below or visit our Facebook page and leave a note there.

SAJ 20 Feb 2013

Dr. Denis Mukwege Returns to Panzi Hospital

Photo: Panzi hospital

On Monday (14 Jan) Dr. Denis Mukwege returned home to Bukavu, in South Kivu province of the DRC, and to the hospital he founded. You may recall that Dr. Mukwege narrowly escaped an assassination attempt last fall (25 Oct). He and his family left the country immediately, flying initially to Sweden before settling down in Belgium. They also spent six weeks in the U.S. during his exile, where he met with former Pres. Bill Clinton, Sen. John Kerry, and international diplomats.

Dr. Mukwege arrived back in Bukavu in the company of several Belgian physicians and the DRC country coordinator for Physicians for Human Rights, which provides some assistance to Panzi Hospital. Thousands of people from across the province waited for several hours to greet him when he arrived. Clearly moved, especially by promises by women he has healed that they would protect him, Mukwege appealed to the crowd to say “No to sexual violence, no to war, no to the balkanization project in the DRC.” “It’s time to end the cycle of hatred and violence in the region of the Great Lakes,” he added.

Photo: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Congo is, as Jeffrey Gettleman has observed, a country “desperate for heroes,” and in such a context “Dr. Mukwege carries . . . an enormous amount of pride—and hope—on his rounded shoulders.” In 1999 he founded Panzi Hospital in partnership with the Communauté des Eglises de Pentecôte en Afrique Centrale (CEPAC), one of the largest Pentecostal Church organizations in the DRC, with roots in Swedish Pentecostal missions in the early 20th century.

While the hospital currently has departments in obstetrics/gynecology, pediatrics, surgery, and internal medicine, it is best known for performing the fistula surgery that repairs the extensive internal damage done to women through violent rape. Panzi is one of very few hospitals in the DRC where women can get this operation (HEAL Africa, in Goma, North Kivu, is another), and Denis Mukwege is a surgeon who specializes in fistula. Over his years at Panzi he has helped treat over 30,000 women and girls, many with this kind of devastating damage.

Small wonder, then, that it was the pleas of women in South Kivu that reached Dr. Mukwege’s heart and influenced his decision to return to his work, even with his assassination attempt unsolved. He and his family are moving into a home prepared for them on the hospital grounds. Local officials and the national police have promised increased protection for the doctor and his hospital, and MONUSCO, the United Nations Stabilization Mission in the DR Congo, has vowed to “continue, within the limits of its mandate, to provide Dr. Mukwege with all the assistance he needs to pursue this important work.”

Photo: Panzi hospital

In a phone call with members of Physicians for Human Rights, following his arrival in Bukavu, Dr. Mukwege talked of the impact of the welcome he had received. “In my life, I have started to dream again,” he said. “When the population stands up to say they support what we do, it is so positive. . . . It was beautiful. I have hope.” He turned again to speak of the women who had begged him to return and promised him their own protection. “These women for a long time have been mistreated and raped, their rights have been violated, but they have remained courageous,” he said. “Thus, I am comfortable staying at their side to help heal them, no matter what the consequences.”

I think Dr. Mukwege is one of my heroes too.

SAJ 17 Jan 2013

Life at Nursing School Gets a Bit Easier

New printer at ITM Karawa

The new term started last week at the nursing school at Karawa (the Medical Technical Institute of Karawa, or ITM), and the students found a few improvements when they arrived. Thanks to Paul Carlson Partnership donors, the school now has a printer, several new tables and benches, and a thick stack of new copies of the course syllabi.

A printer was high on the list of priorities when ITM leaders outlined their needs for us last summer. Dr. Happy Ngongo, director of the school, went shopping himself and came back with an HP Deskjet 2050, along with several reserve ink cartridges and reams of paper. The printer will make a big difference, especially in a school without the ability to buy many books.

Syllabi for obstetrics and other courses

A syllabus for one of these courses is more substantive than those in the U.S., which are typically bare-bones lists of topics and assignments by week. The syllabi for nursing courses in Congo are more substantive and help students work their way through the courses. With the shortage of books at ITM, students at the Karawa school welcomed the additional copies of the syllabus. They had been getting along on one copy per class.

This is a long-term partnership between PCP and ITM, not a short-term project. There is much that we want to do to assist the school — but of course that depends on our donors. If you’d like to be part of this partnership and invest in the future of young nursing candidates at Karawa, check out the nursing school page on this website, or go directly to the donation page.

Dr. Happy added a greeting at the bottom of his report of how these initial funds were spent: “In the name of ITM, we thank you for the support that you are giving us. May the Lord bless you.”

SAJ 17/ Jan 2013

Helping Congolese Babies Breathe

That was the mission of the Paul Carlson Partnership medical team that traveled to northwest DR Congo in late October. They were there because one out of every six babies born in the Karawa health zone will not live through his or her first week. More than half of those deaths are related to asphyxia.

Dr. Eric Gunnoe is a long-term Paul Carlson volunteer leader, a founding member of our Medical Steering Team, and a pediatric critical care specialist. Dr. John Whittington, another long-term volunteer leader and Steering Team member, is a former family physician now working for the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. The two of them were an ideal team to work with the Congolese on beginning to reduce infant mortality. (See our earlier article about this team.) As it turned out, before they left they got to see the first fruit of their teaching on infant resuscitation.

Twelve medical staff had been invited by medical director Dr. Richard Lingili to participate in the training, from Karawa and the other hospitals and health zones. Eric and John took with them the teaching materials “Helping Babies Breathe,” from the American Academy of Pediatrics. One key to this training is NeoNatalie: an inflatable mannequin (with a brown skin tone) that can mimic conditions and responses of an infant. Eric and John took three NeoNatalies with them, along with several trunks full of the equipment and supplies needed for the Congolese staff to implement this method in all 5 hospitals and 94 clinics. Many of those supplies were provided and packed by the people of Christchurch Evangelical Covenant in Portland, Maine — Eric’s home church.

The Congolese were “motivated and capable students,” says Eric. In fact, Dr. Lingili and Dr. Eddy, the staff physician at Wasolo hospital, were so motivated that they took the course along with the others. John and Eric trained the first six students, then those students trained the other six while the teachers observed and coached them. The training lasted from Wednesday through Saturday, with all 12 students passing their tests. By the following Monday, some of the successful students had already begun training the remaining staff of the Karawa hospital maternity ward.

One evening during the training Eric called home and told his wife, Nancy, about the response to this new training. Here’s how Nancy related it to us by email:

“He said it was overwhelming the way it was received. There was a palpable feeling of hope and joy as the nurses and doctors practiced and realized what a difference this would make in decreasing the incidence of infant mortality. The practitioners in this area have never had something like this taught to them, ever.”

And they didn’t have to wait long to prove this new learning. The first little life was saved on Sunday, the day after the training finished. Dr. Eddy, who hadn’t left yet to go back to Wasolo, was helping out at Karawa hospital. When a woman in his care delivered a baby by caesarian section and the baby wasn’t breathing, Dr. Eddy applied the new method, and the infant began to breathe.

Eric and John will continue working with Dr. Lingili as he and his staff carry this knowledge out into the rest of CEUM system. Our goal is for this change to become sustainable throughout the system. And if anyone needs motivation, the answer is in that little life saved by a doctor who knew about helping babies to breathe.

NOTE: Other members of this mission team were Dr. Bill Dunn, a specialist in simulation education at Mayo, who assisted in the training; Dr. Obo Addy, a Ghanaian-American specialist in sleep medicine with training in psychiatry; and Rev. Herb Frost, pastor of the Rochester, Minnesota, Covenant Church. Watch this blog for more about their roles in the future.

SAJ 30 Nov 2012

M23 Slowly Begins Withdrawal in Eastern Congo

Refugees fleeing as M23 advances; photo CNN

M23 forces have begun to withdraw from smaller towns around Goma. A report today from Agence France-Presse, published on ReliefWeb.int, says that rebels have been seen pulling back equipment from the area. AFP quotes Col. Antoine Manzi, a senior commander in the M23, saying the troops will begin by leaving the smaller towns, then finally pull out of Goma on Friday. According to a BBC article posted on Wednesday, rebel military commander Sultani Makenga confirmed through a spokesman that the M23 forces will begin withdrawing, with a handover ceremony in Goma on Friday. He said, however, that 100 troops will be left at the Goma airport, as part of the agreement. It has also been reported that the M23 political wing may establish its office there.

This action by the M23 follows a meeting last weekend in Uganda of regional political and military leaders to address the crisis. Makenga was told firmly that there can be no negotiations on the issues underlying the rebellion until M23 has withdrawn from Goma. That group of leaders is scheduled to travel to Goma on Friday to monitor the rebels’ withdrawal.

To look behind the headlines, I’ve spent a chunk of time today digesting half a dozen articles on Congo, ranging from news to analysis, and what follows is a flash tour through them. Feel free to thumb through the coming paragraphs as you would a magazine.

M23 troops in Goma; photo CNN

It has been an open secret that Rwanda has backed the M23. Though that country denies it, the United Nations has identified it as a material supporter of the rebels. A resolution adopted by the Security Council on Wednesday expressed “deep concern at reports indicating that external support continues to be provided to the M23 . . . causing a significant increase of the military abilities of the M23,” and called for an end to “any and all outside support.” The rebels have been well armed, both in weaponry and in other aids such as night-vision goggles.

Of course, you won’t hear any of this in the evening news headlines. The major American news outlets (along with most of their other Western counterparts) have been consistent through the years in giving scant attention to events in Congo. In a commentary published on CNN’s website, Vava Tampa, a Congolese who founded the organization Save the Congo, compares the attention given to the problems in Gaza and Syria with the lack of visibility for Congo. Tampa made vivid the number of deaths caused by the wars in Congo over the past 15-16 years:

“The wars in that country have claimed nearly the same number of lives as having a 9/11 every single day for 360 days, the genocide that struck Rwanda in 1994, the ethnic cleansing that overwhelmed Bosnia in the mid-1990s, the genocide that took place in Darfur, the number of people killed in the great tsunami that struck Asia in 2004, and the number of people who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki — all combined and then doubled.”

There are other reflective, substantive articles on Congo out there if you happen to spot them. A couple of days ago Byron called my attention to one written by Richard Lee of the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa and published on AllAfrica.com. “Congo-Kinshasa: Governance Reforms Key to Lasting DRC Peace” reports that three Congolese organizations are calling for greater participation by noncombatants in negotiations for peace. Focusing more broadly on the country’s governmental structure, they ask for “clear, structured, coordinated and deep reform of the security sector, including the army, police and intelligence services.” They also call for an overhaul of the Independent National Electoral Commission, and for “the establishment of a National Commission on Human Rights to protect human rights and boost citizen’s confidence.”

12-year-old who lost his arm to a stray bullet; photo CNN

And finally, another perspective is offered by Mort Rosenblum, writing Wednesday on the International Herald Tribune’s IHT Rendezvous blog site. In “The Source of Congo’s Bleeding” Rosenblum reacts to “another of those recurrent headlines” — “Congo Slips into Chaos Again as Rebels Gain” — and says, “It is too easy to blame an innate heart of darkness or a soul poisoned by King Leopold’s colonial cruelty. That leaves out the part about how big powers did — and do — geopolitics.” He looks back at Congo’s history, focusing particularly on the complicity of American and Belgian agents in the assassination of the country’s very popular first president, Patrice Lumumba, and on U.S. support for Mobutu Sese Seko — “the chosen despot.” And he points out one more issue: “Within artificial borders drawn generations earlier in Europe, traditionally hostile tribes don’t accommodate without disinterested outside help. If there are riches to steal, and no real government, obscene thievery is inevitable.”

If you’ve reached this end of the article, it’s pretty likely that you’re more than just curious — that you do care about the people of Congo. If you’re interested in following Congo news in digest form, two good sources are AllAfrica.com and ReliefWeb.com, both mentioned above. In both cases you can sign up for the news you choose to find in your inbox each day.

SAJ 29 Nov 2012