Congo Publications

  • Dec 3, 2009

    Here in North Kivu province, anxiety about the return of Congolese refugees from Rwanda has long been an especially contentious issue.

  • Nov 10, 2009

    Enough experts lead you down the path of the 3Ts—tin, tantalum, tungsten—and gold from the mines of Eastern Congo all the way to your cell phone.

  • Nov 9, 2009

    There are now two major sources of insecurity in South Kivu: reprisal attacks by the FDLR seeking to punish civilian populations for ‘supporting’ the government offensive, and a wider climate of abuses and atrocities committed by the Congolese army, local militias with shifting loyalties, and other bandits and armed groups.

  • Sep 28, 2009

    The human cost of Operation Kimia II—the ongoing joint offensive by the Congolese army and United Nations peacekeepers against Rwandan rebels in eastern Congo—outweighs its benefits. To prevent this crisis from deteriorating further, and to ensure that those military gains that have been achieved can be secured, the Congolese government should suspend new offensive operations and work vigorously with the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo, or MONUC, and international donors to put in place a more effective counterinsurgency approach.

  • Jul 16, 2009

    For 13 years, the people of eastern Congo have been ensnared in a tangled web of armed groups—from foreign rebels to the Congo’s own army—who prey on Congolese civilians and, with collaboration from governments and multinational corporations, strip the country of its immense natural wealth. This conflict can only end when the international community abandons the piecemeal approach it has adopted to deal with this multi-layered and immensely complex conflict and takes a holistic approach to peacemaking.

  • May 13, 2009

    Testimony of John Prendergast, Co-founder of the Enough Project,
    Before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations

  • Apr 24, 2009

    Companies that produce electronics that could contain conflict minerals from eastern Congo have a responsibility to ensure that their business dealings are not inadvertently helping to fuel atrocities. This is not an easy task, but it is achievable.

  • Apr 24, 2009

    Companies that produce electronics that could contain conflict minerals from eastern Congo have a responsibility to ensure that their business dealings are not inadvertently helping to fuel atrocities. This is not an easy task, but it is achievable.

  • Apr 1, 2009

    The time has come to expose a sinister reality: Our insatiable demand for electronics products such as cell phones and laptops is helping fuel waves of sexual violence in a place that most of us will never go, affecting people most of us will never meet. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is the scene of the deadliest conflict globally since World War II. There are few other conflicts in the world where the link between our consumer appetites and mass human suffering is so direct.

  • Mar 12, 2009

    East and central Africa is battered by an arch of chronic conflict that stretches from Somalia to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Congo and Sudan alone account for nearly eight million deaths due to the legacy of war in the past two decades. Although the United States has provided billions of dollars in humanitarian aid, support for peacekeeping missions, and electoral assistance, this aid has not yet succeeded in altering the dynamics that have kept this region dangerously destabilized. 

  • Feb 6, 2009

    A coalition of 100 humanitarian and human rights organizations today called on John Holmes, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, to insist that protecting civilians be a top priority of the joint Congolese and Rwandan military operation in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Holmes is due to arrive in Goma, the North Kivu capital, on February 7, 2009.

  • Jan 30, 2009

    Last week’s arrest of Congolese rebel leader Laurent Nkunda and the deployment of an estimated 4,000 Rwandan soldiers into eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, or DRC, as part of joint Rwandan-Congolese military operations against the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or FDLR, represent a major, and dangerous, crossroads.

  • Dec 11, 2008

    The beleaguered people of North Kivu province in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo are justifiably angry. Despite the international community’s $500 million investment in 2006 elections and the world’s largest United Nations peacekeeping mission (costing more than $1 billion per year), the current round of fighting is the most destructive since 2005 and the latest chapter in more than 12 years of near continuous warfare.

  • Dec 11, 2008

    The beleaguered people of North Kivu province in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo are justifiably angry. Despite the international community’s $500 million investment in 2006 elections and the world’s largest United Nations peacekeeping mission (costing more than $1 billion per year), the current round of fighting is the most destructive since 2005 and the latest chapter in more than 12 years of near continuous warfare.

  • Oct 31, 2008

    The offensive by the rebel Laurent Nkunda’s National Congress for the Defense of People, or CNDP, has dramatically worsened the crisis in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. This latest fighting threatens to once again draw Congo’s neighbors directly into the fray in a damaging escalation that would effectively undo a six-year regional and international effort to stabilize the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Great Lakes region.