David H. Rothman's Blog: Drone Child novel

Drones play a major role in the fictional civil war in Drone Child: A Novel of War, Family, and Survival. They also show up in real life.

As reported by Africa Insider and other outlets, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is spending $800 million on drones to bomb Rwanda-backed M23 rebels. Supervised by a French Foreign Legion veteran, Romanian mercenaries will fly about 10 Chinese-made drones, known as the CASC Rainbow CH-4. They can bomb and fire missiles at ground targets from more than...

Global corporations have footholds in Rwanda. Could that be one reason why the US isn’t trying harder to discourage Rwandan violations of Congolese sovereignty?

This well-reported DW video explores Rwanda’s allure for global corporations and startups, but also the political repression and the related bullying of the press.

Watch the scenes from clean, modern downtown Kigali, and you’ll wonder: “Is Rwanda’s pro-business government a major reason why the country isn’t drawing economic sanctions...

Your iPhone, Kindle, and EV: Conrad-level evil inside?

In Cobalt Red, researcher-activist Siddharth Kara offers searing but credible revelations about cobalt mining practices in the Democratic Republi...

Rwanda aims to become the Singapore of Africa—rich and stable. But has stolen Congolese wealth at least contributed to Rwanda’s successes?

I’ve just tweaked the newest version of the Drone Child novel. Tiny and Demon Killer, my murderous Congolese rebels, are now secretly bankrolled by Rwanda and Uganda—not just by a corrupt plantation owner and his friends and family.

That’s only appropriate, given all the meddling that those two dictator-bossed countries have done in the Democratic Republic...

Even this rosy promo video from the World Bank makes it clear that nirvana is hardly here for the typical Congolese - living on just a few dollars a day. The bank’s commitments to the DRC are far from enough by themselves. - D.R.

Junior Boweya wrote the commentary below with my help, but the opinions are strictly his. I myself am anti-drilling. But he makes many excellent points often ignored by US politicians and media. See my thoughts at the end. - David Rothman

An environmentalist? Yes, I ...

Via UN.

Some United Nations peacekeepers and aid workers have committed wartime crimes against Congolese children and others - yes, atrocities of the very kind the UN should be preventing. Horrid incidents still occur on occasion in the Co...

Via UN.

Some United Nations peacekeepers have committed well-documented wartime crimes against Congolese children and others - yes, atrocities among the very kind the UN should be preventing.

I write briefly about the UN horrors in Drone C...

Drone Child has been favorably reviewed by the African American Literature Book Club, the “Largest Site Dedicated to Books by, or About, Black People.” Here is what , an educator, editor, and writer, says in part:

“The author manages to address a number of angles in the novel, while maintaining an intriguing storyline. The writing is rich and evocative. For example, at the end of Chapter 1 (‘The Deaths of Papa and Mama Boule-boule’) he writes, ‘And so all the others died while Mpa...

Props to Dion Graham, the superstar audio narrator, for the raves that the Drone Child audiobook has received from Library Journal and AudioFile Magazine. Excerpts:

Library Journal, September 1, 2022, Sarah Hashimoto: “With a sorrowful voice, narrator Dion Graham describes how Lemba is blackmailed into assisting the Purifiers and their twisted leader, Demon Killer, into piloting bomb-carrying drones and killing civilians from afar. Graham skillfully captures the cadence of Lemba’s speech, intens...

The child soldier horrors in the Drone Child novel, alas, are not pure fiction.

In the above video, author-activist Michel Chikwanine tells how Congolese rebels forced him as a boy soldier to kill his best friend—just as a 13-year in Child must murder his parents.

That happened years ago, but the atrocities go on. President Biden has acted to try to discourage the use of child soldiers in the Congo and elsewhere, but America could be doing much more (here and here).

Global interest in the gener...