Eastern Congo

A month after Secretary Clinton’s much-watched trip to sub-Saharan Africa, she’s still receiving accolades for the no nonsense way she spoke about some of the continent’s most troubling and challenging problems, from extremism in Somalia to sexual violence in Congo. Her visits resulted in some lofty commitments from the U.S. government, so it is encouraging to see that policy makers in Washington are following up to see that the diplomatic engagement is backed up with resources.  Read More »

A weekly round-up of must-read stories, posted every Friday.  Read More »

Amid all the chaos of the start of the school year, it seems college students have still found time to lobby Congress to respond to the violence in Congo. Recently, students at Weber State University in Utah made serious headway in the campaign to press U.S. leaders to address the deadly war in Congo, convincing their senator to get onboard.  Read More »

Matthew Smith of Bend, Oregon, for his exceptional video “Life Should Be Free,” which creatively shows the links between conflict minerals used in our cell phones and the war in Congo, the deadliest since World War II. As the winner of the Come Clean 4 Congo video contest, launched in May by Enough and YouTube, Smith and a friend will be VIPs at the Hollywood Film Festival in Los Angeles this fall.  Read More »

There are just hours left to vote for the best video in the Come Clean 4 Congo YouTube contest. Voting ends at midnight tonight, so vote now for one of three semi-finalists that our celebrity judges selected. All of the videos do an exceptional job of creatively addressing the links between the trade in conflict minerals that we support through our insatiable demand for electronics devices and the sexual violence that has made eastern Congo the most dangerous place in the world to be a woman or girl.  Read More »

The Washington Times  today rolled out an impressive, full-page cover story under the headline Rape as a Tool of War: Congo’s Greatest Shame. The story is part of the paper’s week-long series titled “The Lost Story of the Lost Continent: How Rape Is Used as a Tool of War in Congo,” which will feature reporting by the Times’ U.N. correspondent Betsy Pisik and photojournalist Mary Calvert, who recently spent six weeks in eastern Congo.

The exposure to the conflict in Congo is excellent, but I fear that the tone used to describe what is happening to women, girls, and men in Congo may leave readers feeling hopeless about a seemingly intractable conflict half a world away.

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Resolve, an NGO working on a supply chain mapping project with the consumer electronics industry, recently provided an update about its investigation into the supply chains for tin, tantalum, and cobalt – two of which are conflict minerals that are helping to fuel violence in eastern Congo.  Read More »

A weekly round-up of must-read stories, posted every Friday.  Read More »