African Leaders Agree to Send Military Advisers to Congo to Defuse Conflict

Nearly 250,000 people have been driven from their homes in the Congo by fighting. The difficulty in the situation is that the fighting has included rebel forces, predatory government troops, local militias, and United Nations. It has been flaring up several times in the past few days, nearing causing full fledged war. On Friday, the presidents of seven African nations held a meeting to try and stop the parties involved. Africa has had such a violent history. From tribal wars in the Congo, to the Rwandan genocides. Africans have been killing Africans for centuries. What is there to be gained? What has been gained? I just don't understand how the world's focus is on oil, on politically inexperienced presidential/vice presidential candidates, and on the love relationships of celebrities. There is so much strife, so much chaos going on in so many peoples lives, 250,000 alone in the Congo. One country has a group of people the size of Fort Wayne, IN in exile, starving and sick, because rebel forces are fighting the Congolese army. Aid workers are having difficulty stopping a cholera outbreak because medicine and food aren't able to get through because of the fighting. It just seems counterproductive if the rebels are fighting for the good of the people, which tends to be the banner that rebel forces who fight the already established government fly. The fighting in Africa needs to be stopped.

African Leaders Agree to Send Military Advisers to Congo to Defuse Conflict

NY times

November 9, 2008 page A6

by Jeffrey Gettleman and Celia W. Dugger