Run for Congo Women - Week's End

Important - From Enough Project & Amnesty International:

When: July 12th, 6:30PM
Where: Amnesty International, 5 Penn Plaza, New York City

Journalist and UN Goodwill Ambassador, Jimmie Briggs, and representatives from Run for Congo Women will give a presentation about the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo at the July 12th meeting of Amnesty International NYC, Women’s Human Rights Group. The speakers will talk about the violence being inflicted against women and children in the DRC, as well as providing information on the New York Run for Congo Women walk/run event on September 25, 2010. The event begins at 6:30 pm and will be held at the Amnesty International office, located in Manhattan at 5 Penn Plaza on the corner of 8th Avenure and 34th Street.

Due to security at the building anyone who is interested in attending this event must RSVP prior to the event to Alyce at nycwhrat@yahoo.com

[beautiful poppies by Olga]

Can You Hear Me Now? Again?

While we are under the weather, some updates on Darfur, South Sudan, & Congo (DRC). Today from Enough Project's John Prendergast on New Legislative Action Tackles Congo's Conflict Minerals. Please click through to the take action link for suggestions regarding personal electronic purchase & recycling. Thanks.

[photographs by drburtoni & Mvemba Phezo Dizolele/Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting]

Darfur Fast for Life

Outside of Darfur fasting is an option, even a health choice (a pretty dodgy one, actually). It's quite the opposite for those trapped inside Darfur who are out of options. This is it: out of options. We are not messing around now; we're angry.

Here is the Darfur Fast for Life website with links to information. Please also check with Enough Project. Raise holy hell--especially on what is Mother's Day. Can you imagine how these mothers are feeling right now?

A Darfur peace conference in Ethiopia has been cancelled because on Friday night Darfuri leaders were told they would not be allowed to attend. We are almost used to this by now; you may not be. But let's just tell you why this should matter to you...though we can hardly believe we'd have to. Look at a map, locate Sudan, locate where in the world this is, the countries to which it is adjacent. No one wanted to hear about Somalia either, until pirates took an American ship. Don't come to us, we told you a year ago, when the Horn blows back on North America, Europe, elsewhere. A little (enlightened) self-interest is a good thing. Think about it.

[photo courtesy of IRIN: Women recently displaced by fighting in North Darfur have settled in a camp for displaced people in Zamzam, south of El-Fasher/© Heba Aly/IRIN]

a fuming ciao-meow/GG Central

Help Resolve Uganda...in DR Congo

Yes. That's right. As if things aren't bad enough, Congolese have been attacked for a few months by the hideous LRA (Lord's Resistance Army), led by war criminal Ugandan Joseph Kony. It's complicated & others have good articles for you to read. Here is the accompanying text to the IRIN photo above from last Saturday, 7 February 2009. And here, "Fighting Back Against the LRA" by Enough Project. Armed With Little but Resolve, and Defending a Hollowed Village in yesterday's New York Times.

Just rang off a conference call in which folks from Resolve Uganda & Genocide Intervention Network (connected to Enough) gave updates on the attacks, particularly those in the recent holiday season. Merry Christmas, indeed. Attacks are ongoing. Apparently, there are some civilian aid groups that are doing good work. We have to check them out & will post further. (Some groups have turned into mini-militias so we need to track this down.) The bleeding of unique conflicts into one big border stew continues: Sudan, Central African Republic, northern Uganda, DR Congo. People shrieked in the U.S. & elsewhere on & after September 11, 2001: "Why didn't someone tell us? We didn't know." When the Horn & Central Africa blows back (watch Somalia, too, of course), we don't want to hear the same. You're not sure why you should care about these conflicts? Well, if it isn't for moral reasons, believe us, you'd be wise to be very interested in what the fallout could be; it won't remain in Africa.

ciao-subdued-meow,
GG's editor

(photo: Under-Secretary General, UN, John Holmes (center right), Kibati camp, Nord-Kivu/7 February 2009/© Eddy Isango/courtesy of IRIN]

Waiting in Congo/Attente au Congo, part 2

There's no excuse for this, none at all. (See GG November post, part 1)

Anderson Cooper's 360° blog, here. His 60 Minutes piece The War Against Women is still the best & most comprehensive. Things have only gotten worse, though. Go to Enough Project's What You Can Do For Eastern Congo (7 Things). It's takes so little effort & the pay-off can be huge if we all work together. Raise Hope for Congo is affiliated with Enough & has a good website, too. Friends of the Congo is a terrific organization, visit them here.

ciao-meow,
GG's increasingly impatient editor

(photograph courtesy of © Les Neuhaus/IRIN)

Mia Farrow in Haiti & Congo

Hard-working, lovely Mia Farrow is in Congo presently. She's unable to post photographs right now. However, here is a brief post from Thursday, 11 December 2008. Here for her Darfur, Central African Republic (CAR), Haiti, & Chad flickr sets.

These photos are by Mia & yes, that's a toy car made from items found in the garbage. This little Haitian boy has nothing...not enough to eat, no clean water. But he has this. Haiti is our neighbor & we haven't been very neighborly. We lurch from crisis to crisis & that does not work. Go here & see what you might do about it.

Mia makes mixing humanitarian aid/rights work & the pleasures of life positively graceful. Someone asked GG's editor the other day: how can you look at pretty pix one minute, make holiday plans, see a movie, have a drink, & THIS.? (They were just asking, not critical.) People do the best they can to take a breath between moments of crises. By the same token, we haven't a bit of sympathy with "don't bring down the holidays with talk of doom." No one's had the nerve to say that to us, but we've heard it said about others. Give us a [bleeping] break. (Hey cool cats, "bleep" is all the rage now:)

ciao-meow,
GG Central

Five things You Can Do In 15 Minutes

Map date is 2 August 2004. Today is 9 December 2008.

Why not take 15 minutes & visit Enough Project's Take Action? It's simple, painless, & it really does help. Much despair about Zimbabwe, Congo, Somalia, on & on. Yes. But it's possible to do something & that makes all the difference. Many thanks.

GG & her editor

Waiting in Congo/Attente au Congo

Women in Kibati Camp, eastern Congo, waiting for food rations.Kibati Camp was attacked three days ago; women & girls, as usual, are the most vulnerable to attacks--from soldiers on all sides of the conflict. This maddening never-ending war truly boggles the mind. Here is a link to IRIN News Agency story.

Please go to the Enough Project for ideas on what you can do. An email or two goes a long way & costs nothing.

Photo by Les Neuhaus/IRIN. Courtesy of IRIN.

Congo

>Usually a spoonful of sugar & so on. Not now, though we are refraining from showing the worst of the photos of children. Please read the BBC's (Q&A Congo), or go here for the latest on Congo. If you're reading this, please go to Raise Hope for Congo, the Enough Project. If you're in the UK, France, or anywhere else, contact your governmental agency for international affairs. Something must be done & it can be but people must put pressure on their government. France has been trying to convince EU member countries to contribute troops but the answer has been an inexcusable "no."

From ABC News: Congolese women demonstrate in Goma, eastern Congo, Nov. 14, 2008, against war-related violence in the northern Kivu province. About 300 women responded to the demonstration called by local women's groups and nongovernmental organizations. The signs read: "Do you want us to also take weapons?" and "We are crying for our children killed in Rutchuru."

photo via ABC.com/Jerome Delay/AP Photo

What kind of world do you want? (Part 2)

Isn't she lovely? This lady (we don't know her name) posed for photographer Jay Dedman on the afternoon of 28 January 2006. We hope she is alive & well. But she lives in the most dangerous place in the world to be a woman. Please go to Raise Hope for Congo & the Enough Project to see what you can do; it's probably more than you think. We cannot stress the urgency of the current crisis in eastern Congo enough. If you own or use a cell phone, a computer, any kind of electronics, this affects you. Here is the link to Anderson Cooper's 60 Minutes piece, The War Against Women, in January 2008. It was repeated in August & the situation has only deteriorated.

Once you know, you can't say you don't.