Completely Unnecessary

Jesus. That’s about all one can say about this past Friday’s election in Zimbabwe.

With Tsvangirai gone and the UN bravely refusing to do anything (the august body was even unable to declare a run-off with one candidate ‘illegitimate’).

Mugabe has declared victory and proclaimed ‘record turnouts’, though it appear (unsurprisingly) that the Zimbabweans that voted did so out of fear. Despite the increasing violence and terror waged against those supporting the opposition, it seems as though numerous voters spoilt their ballots or voted for Tfo. Some even boycotted the poll, despite Mugabe’s thugs checking for the tell-tale ‘I voted’ red ink on people’s fingers.

But, worry not, Mugabe is going to be magnamouous in his ‘victory’ - I suppose he can afford to be, having terrorized his opponent and his people.

Bush is going to put in tougher sanctions, but whether this will work or not is debatable. One of Mugabe’s ploys in the past has been to claim that Western sanctions on his government is what has driven the insane inflation in the country. But at least he’s doing something.

After the fact, of course. God forbid we act when it might be truly effective - say, before or during the intimidating beatings, murders and incarcerations. Say, before Mugabe could claim victory in an election.

Perhaps if we meddled in the right place for once we wouldn’t have to call it ‘meddling’.

Vaguely Related

• Zimbabwe: Mugabe Retaliates in Plain Sight
• Zimbabwe: Mugabe in Plain Sight II

I’m sorry, but you have to read this story about the rape epidemic in D.R. Congo. Give your thanks to Leopold, Eisenhower, Dulles, Mobutu, and global disinterest in central Africa.

An important facet of the story is unfortunately left to Page 2, which many people probably won’t get to because Page 1 is not easy to read:

Many Congolese aid workers denied that the problem was cultural and insisted that the widespread rapes were not the product of something ingrained in the way men treated women in Congolese society. “If that were the case, this would have showed up long ago,” said Wilhelmine Ntakebuka, who coordinates a sexual violence program in Bukavu.

Instead, she said, the epidemic of rapes seems to have started in the mid-1990s. That coincides with the waves of Hutu militiamen who escaped into Congo’s forests after exterminating 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus during Rwanda’s genocide 13 years ago.

This, of course, further condemns the entire world in the abandonment of Rwanda, but the article doesn’t ask the larger question. How do we begin to account for populations who have been driven so far off the rails? Presumably widespread rape is not a cultural Hutu quality either, though it appears now to be amongst the Hutu militants.

Mr. Bourque called this phenomenon “reversed values” and said it could develop in heavily traumatized areas that had been steeped in conflict for many years, like eastern Congo.

But how can we isolate these events to the those horrific 100 days thirteen years ago?  How can we leave out the chains of porters, the severed hands, the random heaped murders, and abducted women to ensure rubber quotas during the colonial period? How do we leave out the assassinations of elected leaders? The horror of Mobutus and Amins?

This is trauma on top of trauma on top of trauma. DR Congo is a country whose phenomenal natural resources have been stolen by so many hands (both foreign and domestic) that they use cargo planes designed in the 1960s. Planes that repeatedly crash into populated areas.

In the town of Shabunda, 70% of women reported being sexually assaulted. That’s reported. An honest question, how as a global group of people do we begin to account for that?

Vaguely Related

• Women and the World: It’s Not Going Well.
• Werribee Ruling: It’s Still a Man’s World