This is coolbert: In the last few years, a war of enormous proportions has been fought in the Congo. A war that has been largely unreported by the media throughout the world. Some have referred to this as the first World War in Africa [overstated]. It is reported that perhaps two to three million persons have been killed in this war, civilians and miltiary both [mostly civilians]. This war was prompted by the death of overthrow of the dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko. Forces and factions of many parties have been involved in this war, all fighting to gain control of the Congo and the mineral riches that are present. A typical scenario has played itself out over and over again in the Congo, and indeed has throughout all of Africa. The corrupt dictator has rebel forces mass in the jungle against him. The rebels gain strength, eventually march on the capital city. The dictator flees, and the rebels are victorious. The international press proclaims this to be a thing of good, and "something good" will emerge from the rebels victory. Then six months or so later, again, the newly installed rebels are now the dictators, and a new group of rebels are once again massing in the jungle. The process repeats itself over and over. The cost to the civilian populace has been acute, with civilians being intimidated and murdered in large numbers by both side in the conflict. Stories of murder, rape, atrocity, cannibalism on a wide spread scale are hard to verify, but no doubt are true to a large extent. The UN did a series of overflights to obtain data as part of the protocol to determine the extent of the killing. Their conclusions were that massive numbers of people have been killed, mostly by starvation.

Now, foreign forces have also been involved in the fighting. Foreign forces such as the army of Zimbabwe. A country not even having a contiguous border with the Congo. For selfish reasons, the despotic government of Zimbabwe has sent it's army to fight on whoever is the side on the ascendancy. For reasons not entirely clear either [to enrich the greedy pockets of the despots]. And this for a country that is on the verge of collapse itself [Zimbabwe]. A recent article in the Zimbabwe News reported that the Supreme Court of Zimbabwe had recently declared ten soldiers killed and legally dead. This out of perhaps thousands of Zimbabwean soldiers killed in the fighting??!! Go figure the calculations made in such banal behavior!? Such is the situation in central Africa.

coolbert.