On a stop in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton kind of sort of called for an end to the unspeakable sexual violence that is being perpetrated on the women of the Democratic Republic of Congo,saying,
“We do support the efforts to end the militias and the violence they have visited so terribly on the people of the eastern Congo,” Clinton said. But she added: “We believe that a disciplined, paid army is a more effective fighting force. We believe that more can be done to protect civilians while you are trying to kill and capture insurgents.”
And then there is this–turns out, according to the Washington Post, that we are backing those that have escalated this crisis:
For the women of eastern Congo, a U.S.-backed Congolese military operation meant to save them from abusive rebels has turned into a nightmare of its own.
An already staggering epidemic of rape has become markedly worse since the January deployment of tens of thousands of poorly trained, poorly paid Congolese soldiers, with people in front-line villages such as this one saying the soldiers are not so much hunting rebels as hunting women.
And meanwhile in Iraq it seems that the very well-paid but not so well disciplined private contractor,
Blackwater was guilty of using child prostitutes at its compound in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone and that owner Erik Prince knew of this activity and did nothing to stop it.The declarations describe Blackwater as “having young girls provide oral sex to Enterprise members in the ‘Blackwater Man Camp’ in exchange for one American dollar.” They add even though Prince frequently visited this camp, he “failed to stop the ongoing use of prostitutes, including child prostitutes, by his men.”
One of the statements also charges that “Prince’s North Carolina operations had an ongoing wife-swapping and sex ring, which was participated in by many of Mr. Prince’s top executives.”
Bottom line? Militarism endangers women’s lives, full stop, no exceptions. The U.S. military is all too aware of sexual assault being perpetrated within its ranks and by employees of contractors such as Blackwater, there is nothing new about it. Yet it continues because the bottom line is that it is systemic to militarism. It is true in the U.S., it is true in the Congo and in every armed conflict.
Militarism is not how you stop sexual assault. It is not how you protect the women of Afghanistan. It is not how you protect the women of Iraq and it is not how you protect women in the Congo or any place else.
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Update: Air America also has an interesting piece on this:
Clinton’s $17 million aid package will be used to train gynecologists, supply women with video cameras to document perpetrators and assist in programs that try to teach men not to rape. Hothschild has another tactic, that the U.S. government is seemingly less willing to implement.
The outside world has influence over the Congolese army, because we’re partly paying for it. The national government depends on aid money to make ends meet, depends on the UN force to retain control of the east, and sometimes even needs UN planes to transport its soldiers, for there is no drivable road from one side of the country to the other. At a bare minimum, the Western powers have leverage to pressure Congo into purging its army of thugs in senior positions—and could demand far more as well.
