Kat Gale’s Reviews > Congo Stories: Battling Five Centuries of Exploitation and Greed > Status Update

To combat all the evil that’s been done in Congo, look for even the smallest seeds of change—entrepreneurial and humanitarian—and help them grow. Seek out the changemakers and commit your support directly. Buy ethically sourced goods. Such an action is a humane and even intimate way to state your rejection of a history of soulless corporate exploitation. You have this power. Don’t ever think you don’t.

We need to get involved and try to do something in support of the changemakers on the ground in Africa. The changes will be made in Congo by Congolese, but global people’s movements and activism can provide critical support to turn the tide.
For more information on how you can help, please visit congostories.org

Congo’s leaders and their international collaborators committing human rights crimes can be countered by aggressively enforcing top-level targeted network sanctions and ensuring banks implement anti–money laundering measures...Imposing real consequences so that war crimes no longer pay would be a game-changer in supporting Congolese struggles for peace, human rights, and good governance.

Apple was the first company to require its suppliers to source only from audited conflict-free smelters, kicking out smelters who refused to be audited; working tirelessly to bring transparency to the minerals bag-and-tag system in Congo and the region; supporting conflict-free minerals and human rights projects in Congo; and having the highest percentage of conflict-free smelters in any industry in its supply chain.

The journalist should be attempting to understand the situation and deciding to talk about it so it can change. If you’re just reporting to be famous but not to change the situation, for me this is not professionalism. So it’s kind of a debate or discussion: “You’re an activist, you’re not a journalist.” But I say, “Good journalists are activists.”

I want to see parents consider their children equals; to see teachers consider all their pupils as equal; to see professors encourage women to do architecture or any other work that is stereotypically men’s work; to see churches preach equality; to see media talking about gender equality in all spheres of life; to see men and women together, hand in hand, working to change the country. I dream of that kind of Congo.

The problem is not the strength or the power that women have, it’s the way people perceive that power. People ask, “How can she combine work, home, blah blah blah, traveling? When she travels, her husband stays home alone. Who’s cooking for him?”

War-ravaged areas [in Congo] are a top priority for humanitarian interventions. Hundreds of millions of dollars flow in every year to address the needs of internally displaced persons, fight cholera outbreaks, counter severe malnutrition, support rape survivors, etc. But in a country where successive presidents steal most of the state assets for personal enrichment, these aid agencies can only have a limited impact.

The phrase “crimes against humanity” was first used in response to human rights abuses in Congo. The African American writer and minister George Washington Williams first coined the phrase during a visit in 1890, when he witnessed the cruelty of King Leopold’s abusive governing system. The phrase was so apt it was codified into international law in the Hague Conventions in 1899.

The leader of one refugee camp told us, “The problem in Congo is greed. They should prosecute the greedy people—wherever they come from—who benefit from illegal minerals.” Another refugee: “I want the users of these minerals to come live in these camps with us so they can understand what we are going through.” Another said, “Anyone who buys a cell phone should question their conscience and insist on fair trade.”