By Andrew Stroehlein

BRUSSELS - It's a maxim that what people aren't talking about is always a favorite topic of conversation. But it will make your head spin when applied to the media and the most deadly conflict in the world today. Western media generally do not cover the ongoing war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but a media story is currently developing around the Congo - focusing, paradoxically, on how the conflict is not a media story.

I've lost count of how many journalists in the recent weeks have asked me, "Why aren't the media covering the Congo?"

With an estimated 1,000 people dying there every day as a result of hunger and disease caused by war, it is an appropriate question. But the extent of this coverage of noncoverage is reaching the absurd: print, radio, TV, Internet - they all want to know why they themselves are not writing articles and broadcasting programs about the Congo.

And it is not just me noticing this. In March, Reuters even held a seminar on "forgotten crises," at which the Congo topped the list, and on BBC World Service the other day, I heard a newscaster ask: "Shouldn't this be getting more attention?"

Indeed. What the world media are missing is one of the deadliest conflicts since World War II: 3.8 million people have died in the Congo since 1998, dwarfing not only the biggest of natural catastrophes, such as December's South Asia tsunami, but also other manmade horrors, such as Darfur.

Congo's situation is complicated - any war on such a scale would be - but the outlines of the current stage of the conflict are straightforward enough for any journalist to summarize.

After four years of civil war (a free-for-all in which eight neighboring countries played a part) a transitional government was established in Kinshasa, the capital, in 2003. Since then, the warlords-turned-politicians who dominate the transition, each of whom still maintains his own militia, have vied for political advantage and access to the country's vast economic resources. None is above using violence as a means to stay in power and resist the integration of the country, and that violence looks set to get worse in the run-up to elections, technically slated for this month, though certain now to be postponed - a delay that in itself may cause significant unrest.

The deadly game has one particularly poisonous wild card: the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a key rebel group in the eastern Congo that regularly attacks civilians. Because the FDLR has its origins in the Hutu extremists who slaughtered 800,000 people in the Rwandan genocide of 1994, Rwanda has a pretext to invade its neighbor, which it has done at least twice in recent years and threatened to do again in April - a move that would undermine Congo's fragile transition and could reignite a regional war.

With so many dying and so much at stake, it is simply astounding that Congo isn't in the newspapers and on nightly news regularly. Even a nonlethal car bombing in Iraq or a kidnapping in Afghanistan gets more Western media coverage in a day than Congo gets in a typical month of 30,000 dead. So much for the old TV news editors' saw, "If it bleeds, it leads."

When the question is turned around - or pointed in the proper direction - and I ask the media why they are not covering the Congo, journalists usually respond with a sigh or a shrug. Field-hardened correspondents often tell me they'd like to go but can't convince their editors.

News editors have long assumed "no one is interested in Africa," supposing their audience sees only hopeless African problems eternally defying solution and thus not worth attention.

But solutions do exist for Congo: The linchpin to resolving the conflict is the creation of a unified and effective national army and the disarmament of the remaining ragtag forces that are the source of so much suffering.

Both the Congolese Transitional Government and the Rwandan government are heavily dependent on outside aid, so if the international community would more closely condition its support on such concrete measures, it could bolster the transition process and decisively advance peace in the region. Sadly, such stories of potential solutions are no more reported in the Western media than stories of the country's current despair.

Somewhat encouragingly, however, the old assumption about a lack of interest in Africa seems to be breaking down now. A new Zogby poll, conducted for the International Crisis Group, has revealed that 53 percent of Americans think the US doesn't pay enough attention to the problems of Africa. Darfur has managed to capture strong interest throughout the Western world, even inspiring grass-roots campaigns with extensive participation.

Though the tsunami hit only a small part of Africa, the tsunami story has turned traditional news wisdom on its head in a similar way: surprising as it may seem to some news executives, people actually do care. Readers and viewers actually will be captivated by - and will even engage with - distant humanitarian disasters when they know about them.

This is why the current coverage of Congo's noncoverage actually leaves me optimistic that the country might be the next distant disaster to capture broad media attention.

The fact that so many journalists are now asking why the media aren't covering the Congo suggests we are coming to some kind of tipping point. Once they turn the question on themselves, the buzz will, let's hope, move on from the lack of coverage and start being the story itself.

Sexual exploitation of women and girls by U.N. peacekeepers and bureaucrats in the U.N. mission in Congo "appears to be significant, wide-spread and ongoing," according to a confidential U.N. report that documents cases of pedophilia, prostitution and rape.

The report by a U.N. peacekeeping official who recently visited Congo says that some U.N. personnel paid $1 to $3, or bartered food or the promise of a job, for sex. In some cases, U.N. officials allegedly raped women and girls and then offered them food or money to make it look as if they had engaged in prostitution.

Senior U.N. officials in New York said they have received 150 allegations of sexual abuse by U.N. personnel in Congo. The officials declined to provide names or nationalities of those charged with misconduct, saying they are under investigation. But U.N. officials familiar with the charges said that Tunisian and Uruguayan peacekeepers and a French civilian are among those accused of abuse.

"The situation appears to be one of 'zero-compliance with zero-tolerance' throughout the mission," according to the Nov. 8 report, which summarizes the findings of a U.N. mission to the region led by Prince Zeid Hussein, Jordan's U.N. ambassador. "It appears that the most frequent form of sexual exploitation occurring in [the U.N. mission in Congo] relates to instances of prostitution with minors and adult women, with occasional instances of rape."

The abuse in Congo mirrors previous scandals at U.N. missions in Cambodia and Bosnia, where U.N. police from the United States, Romania and many other countries were implicated in sexual crimes and misconduct. In contrast to those episodes, the United Nations has sought to confront the charges publicly and admitted that policies devised to combat those activities have failed.

"I am afraid there is clear evidence that acts of gross misconduct have taken place," U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said at a Nov. 19 summit in Tanzania. "This is a shameful thing for the United Nations to have to say, and I am absolutely outraged by it."

Bush-Powell initiative on the Congo good signal for U.S-Africa relations President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell's (picture right) decision to meet on Thursday, February 1, 2001, in Washington DC with the Democratic Republic of Congo's new president, Joseph Kabila (son of the recently murdered former president Laurent Kabila) holds several international policy implications, strategic meanings and politically symbolic values.
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First, as the world's most preeminent statesman and former president of South Africa Nelson Mandela said a few days ago, the unfortunate assassination of the senior Kabila offers a chance to rebuild Congo, stabilize the region and make peace.

Second, why is this important? The world is facing the specter of an impending, but avoidable reality that one of Africa's largest countries could implode and dismember in a couple of months. If the Congo disintegrates, the entire central Africa region, its neighboring 8 countries and major parts of southern Africa region will face catastrophic human and geopolitical complications. David Kilgour, Canada's secretary of state for Africa said recently that the Congo "is the center of gravity in Africa.... If things spin out of control here, who knows how many countries will be sucked into the whirlpool." To be sure, it will impact Uganda, the other Congo, Rwanda, Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe and in part, South Africa; since the Congo's 51 million long-embattled citizens made up of 20 significant ethnic groups will, more than likely, vote with their feet.

Third, we should look at the events regarding the Congo from what I may call the show-me-the money foundations of international relations and diplomacy. Those would have, in part, compelled Bush's interest and rethink on Africa. Congo has abundant resources such as cobalt, petroleum, industrial and gem diamonds, gold, silver, germanium, uranium, radium, bauxite, copper, cadmium,, zinc, manganese, tin, iron ore, coal, timber and the luxuriant Congo River. Houston-based and other U.S. corporations are doing business inside and around the Congo's minerals rich fields. Congo has since 1938 captured the interests of rapacious Belgian colonialist, and the modern-day American and European corporations.

Fourth, it shows, however modest the steps, that Bush is open to learn about the realities of U.S. and Africa interests. The man did not allow pride or preconceived notions to halt an opportunity to open new doors into Africa rather than abandon the Congo, as the economic predators from colonial Belgium did.

Fifth, it validates my view the fact that Bush's international relations team lead by Colin Powell, an Africa-American of Caribbean roots, and Prof. Condoleezza Rice, another African-American, are not tokenist fixtures at the Department of State and National Security but professionals who seem capable of rising to the dynamics of a rapidly changing world. As I argued on December 18, 2000 on the Houston Chronicle Outlook page in a commentary titled 'Choice of Powell puts Africa on Bush's map', Powell is familiar with the African continent, and that most persons of African descent are hopeful that Powell will, as he has done in the past, elevate the issues that are important for his community and ancestry -- all within the global material interests of the U.S.

Finally, as a realistic advocate for Africa in the U.S., and as a student of international economic relations, I commend the Bush-Powell initiative on war-torn Congo as timely, appropriate and a clear signal of support for the reconstruction of the structures of peace and business in the region.

Recall that I had on CNN after the presidential elections criticized candidate Bush's ill-advised November 2000 pre-election view that Africa will not be an area of priority under his presidency. Hence, it is heartwarming that after his election as President, Bush's first major meeting with any leader of another country will be with a very young leader from Africa, the long-suffering, embattled continent, and heritage home for almost 32 million Blacks in America. With this latest move, Bush continues to surprise many; gradually but positively.

"The president had a good and positive discussion with President Kabila," said McClellan. "The president reaffirmed our commitment to continue providing humanitarian assistance to relieve human suffering in the Democratic Republic of Congo."

Bush, according to McClellan, pledged to the Congolese leader his continued attention to addressing the security problems plaguing eastern Congo.

Kabila, in remarks to the press following his talks with Bush, said he too found the discussion to be productive and looks forward to working with Bush in the future.

In October 2002, Bodman’s former company came under fire when a United Nations Panel of Experts produced a report accusing the company, along with several other US corporations, of helping to fuel the wars in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) while he ran Cabot by purchasing coltan from Congo during the conflict and illegally plundering the country’s vast natural resources.

Cabot has publicly denied the allegations in the UN report, but a report by the Belgian Senate states that Eagle Wings Resources International had a long-term contract to supply Cabot with coltan, which it too purchased from Congo during the war. Eagle Wings was also identified in the UN report as contributing to the war.

In response, environmental Friend of the Earth United States (FOE) and the UK-based human rights group Rights and Accountability in Development (RAID) filed a complaint with the US State Department last August against Cabot and several other western corporations for its role in aiding the rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo by conducting business there, essentially inadvertently aiding a violent conflict that contributed to widespread human rights abuses.

AID an FOE filed a complaint with the U.S. State Department last August claiming Cabot and other western corporations having violated the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) “Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises,” a set of international standards for responsible corporate behavior.

The UN panel said in its report that a “three-year investigation found that sophisticated “elite networks” of high-level political, military and businesspersons, in collaboration with various rebel groups, intentionally fueled the conflict in order to retain control over the country’s vast natural resources. The Panel implicated many Western companies for directly or indirectly helping to fuel the war.”

The State Department is the agency in charge of deciding whether US companies breach the OECD guidelines. Despite the allegations included in the UN report and the complaint filed by the two activist groups, the State Department has refused to launch an independent investigation into whether Cabot, under Bodman’s leadership, and the other US companies might have contributed to the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

There is no current U.S. direct bilateral aid to the Government of the Congo. USAID’s 2004 program in the D.R.C. totals $120 million, which will be used by international and local NGOs for a wide range of relief and developmental activities throughout the country.