Have You Heard of Congo War?
Today, the New York Times has this piece: The World Capital of Killing , By Nicholas D Kristof. At [ http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/opinion/07kristof.html ]. Quote:
It's easy to wonder how world leaders, journalists, religious figures and ordinary citizens looked the other way while six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. And it's even easier to assume that we'd do better.
But so far the brutal war here in eastern Congo has not only lasted longer than the Holocaust but also appears to have claimed more lives. A peer- reviewed study put the Congo war's death toll at 5.4 million as of April 2007 and rising at 45,000 a month. That would leave the total today, after a dozen years, at 6.9 million
Reading Wikipedia Second Congo War. Quotes:
… By 2008 the war and its aftermath had killed 5.4 million people, mostly from disease and starvation, making the Second Congo War the deadliest conflict worldwide since World War II. Millions more were displaced from their homes or sought asylum in neighboring countries.
Despite a formal end to the war in July 2003 and an agreement by the former belligerents to create a government of national unity, 1,000 people died daily in 2004 from easily preventable cases of malnutrition and disease.
…
In eastern Congo, the prevalence and intensity of rape and other sexual violence is described as the worst in the world. In October 2004 the human rights group Amnesty International reported that 40,000 cases of rape had been reported over the previous six years, the majority occurring in South Kivu. This is an incomplete count as the humanitarian and international organizations compiling the figures do not have access to much of the conflict area and only women who have reported for treatment are included. The actual number of women raped is thus assumed to be much higher. All armed forces in the conflict are guilty of rape, though the militia and various insurgent groups have been most culpable. Of particular medical concern is the abnormally high proportion of women suffering vaginal fistulae, usually as a result of being gang raped. The nature of rape in the conflict has, beyond the physical and psychological trauma to the individual women, contributed to the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, in the region.
The USA's military expenditure is almost the rest of the world combined. The USA Americans see ourselfs as the world leader, and “peace keeping” here and there, and “War On Terror”, but it doesn't seem to have a hand in stopping the Congo War. If you survey university professors across US, i doubt half of them are aware of the Congo War situation. (See: Futuristic Calamity) They say today the world is a small world, a global villege, due to the incredible advancement of communication technologies. For things you are interested, sure, you can just about know it all, regardless where it is in the world. However, for things you don't have a personal interest, you are likely not to have heard about it.
Also note, those fat and rich people in USA (e.g. PETA), who got nothing to do, spend their energy on “Animal Rights” this and that, thinking themselves as ethical gods. Isn't there something wrong when this man made mega deaths are almost unknown, while most Americans have heard of the concern of the death of chickens? With regards to ethics, what are the priorities?
Also note, that we see this count of deaths in millions, or hundreds of thousands in Iraq… just how many people are there for body count? The world has 6.8 giga people. So, 1 mega people is just 0.014%. See: Population Under the Firmament. Note also that Africa has the highest population growth. They are un-educated, and they just keeps on fucking and making babies. [see Too Many People on Earth]
See also: Selected Death Tolls for Wars, Massacres and Atrocities Before the 20th Century By Matthew White. At http://necrometrics.com/pre1700a.htm