The rape victims in the Panzi Hospital in Bukavu are stark representatives of the «forgotten, permanent tsunami of the Congo».

Writing in the Norwegian magazine Samtiden, Jan Egeland, Director of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) tells of his visit last year to the Panzi Hospital in Bukavu in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). At that stage he was Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Emergency Relief Coordinator.

A twenty six year old women told him how she was raped by 30 militiamen after being tied to four stakes in the ground. The violence was repeated for three weeks. Then one day the militias fled. She was left lame in both feet and hands as well as suffering from vaginal fistula. The violence was so brutal that the wall between her vagina and anus was ruptured. A nun brought her for treatment to Panzi Hospital’s fistula clinic run by the Pentecostal church network CEPAC and CRN.

«As on so many other field trips the realization grows: We cannot rest until such Dark Age-violations and such vast injustices are ended. And this generation has shown, in some places, that when we want, it is possible to stop such massive suffering,» writes Egeland in Samtiden.

«The terrible violence against women in the Democratic Republic of Congo is a rarely spoken about aspect of the wars of this country,» writes Egeland in Samtiden. In his book «Det nytter» – It helps – due later this year, he says the war in Eastern Congo is «the worst of our generation». Between 1998 and 2003 more than four million people died. And people are still dying.

While pointing out that the suffering in the Congo hardly ever makes international news, Egeland does not despair:
«With the help of amongst others the UN, Norway and this years Norwegian Medical Students´Humanitarian Campaign, thousands of women are getting help at Panzi.» He also emphasises that without the effort of UN peacekeeping troops to disarm over ten thousand militiamen, the situation in Eastern Congo would have been much worse.

Text: Jan Speed
Photo of Jan Egeland by © Tugela Ridley/IRIN

Release imprisoned journalists, abolish “insult laws” and laws that restrict press freedom.

These were the demands of The World Association of Newspapers (WAN) and the World Editors Forum meeting in Cape Town this week.
The leaders of the world newspaper industry underlined their opinion that press freedom remains a key to the establishment of good governance and durable economic, political, social and cultural development, prosperity and peace in Africa, and to the fight against corruption, famine, poverty, violent conflict, disease, and lack of education

In a declarations they urged African countries to abolish “insult’’ and criminal defamation laws “which in the five months of this year have caused the harassment, arrest and/or imprisonment of 103 editors, reporters, broadcasters and online journalists in 26 African countries (as outlined in the annexure to this declaration).”

WAN also urged African governments as a matter of urgency to review and abolish all other laws that restrict press freedom, as well as to release jailed journalists. Ethiopia and Eritrea are these worst violators of press freedom, but even the South African government has on occasion withheld advertising to punish critical newspapers.
by Jan Speed

Free elections are part of democracy, but a responsible media is even more important.

This is the view of Norway’s Minister of International Development, Erik Solheim (photo). He points out that the elections in Angola in 1992 were perfectly organised and democratic. Yet, the ultimate consequence was that they plunged the country into a new 10 years of civil war, because the elections happened in a vacuum. It was only in 2002 that peace settled over Angola. A date for new elections has not been set. While there is relative press freedom in the capital Luanda, but independent and critical radio stations are waiting for licences to broadcast more widely.
- Support of media is a central part of our development agenda, said Solheim at a seminar on Free Media in Fredrikstad, Norway this week. However, his government has not increased the funding for the media development sector in next year’s budget.
The minister underlines the fact that journalists in conflict areas have a special responsibility to give the view of the different sides in the conflict, and must take responsibility in trying to reduce tensions. He was particularly scornful of the media in Sri Lanka were he has been involved in the peace process for many years.
- Journalists in Sri Lanka are part of the problem in the sense that they deliberately propagate lies. They fuel the conflict and make a solution more difficult.
- Without a responsible media, democracy is not possible, says Solheim.
By Jan Speed
Photo by Pierre de Brisis/Utenriksdepartementet

The multi-billion aid industry has largely failed in Africa. The foreign NGO movement has grown as Africa`s crisis has deepened. Africa can prosper without vast amounts of new aid.

In the latest issue of The Africa Report, Michael Holmen (former Africa editor of the Financial Times) challenges the demands and PR-message for more aid to Africa that international NGO`s have become expert at campaigning for.

"Aid isn`t working, but the aid lobby pretends it is," he writes. He points out that there are more foreigners working in Africa now than there were at independence five decades ago.

"As foreigners arrive to take up short-term contracts, each year about 70000 skilled Africans - doctors, engineers, nurses - leave to work abroad. Western governments should ask whether the growth of NGOs is not only a symptom of Africa`s crisis, but perhaps part of the cause?" he suggests.

It is a relevant question and one that NGOs in Europe do not seem to keen on discussing.

By Jan Speed