Stop The Mass Murder And Rape In The Democratic Republic Of The Congo

This petition was a collaboration of the following organizations:
CSUN, African Students Organization.
Friends of the Congo
&
Mothers for Africa
Altadena California

To:
President Barack Obama
Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton
Office of Budget and Management
Peter Orszag, Director
Rob Nabors , Deputy Director
Deputy Director for Management
Jeffrey Liebman, Executive Associate Director
Department of the Treasury
Office of International Affairs
United States Congressional Representatives

Since 1998 there have been over two million orphaned children, over seven hundred thousand women and children rape survivors and almost six million murdered from war related conflict and according to the latest estimates fifteen hundred people die each day making this one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world.

Foreign companies are profiting from unregulated mining and selling of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC) vast mineral deposits such as diamonds, gold, copper, cobalt and coltan. Congo holds 80 percent of the world’s reserves of coltan, a heat-resistant mineral ore widely used in cellular phones, laptop computers, video games, jet engines, rockets, cutting tools, camera lenses, x-ray film, ink jet printers, hearing aids and many other electronic devises. The DRC is the richest country in the world with the poorest people. Foreign multi-national corporations have benefited tremendously from the exploitation of coltan in the DRC. The coltan mined by rebels and neighboring countries ( Rwanda, Uganda & Burundi ) is sold to these foreign corporations.

This exploitation of the DRC has fueled human trafficking, rape, death and forced labor of innocent people on their own land. The rape of these women is brutal; rape victims range from one to eighty years of age. The rebel solders (rapist) insert foreign objects inside the women such as knives, staffs, and rocks. Sometimes the women are even shot inside their vaginas causing them to seek reconstructive surgery. Pregnant women are usually disemboweled and venereal diseases are rampant and sometimes boys and men are raped if not killed. Some women walk over twenty miles or up to three months just to get to a clinic and when they arrive the clinics often do not have pain pills or even a band aid and the women have to wait days or months to receive treatment.

The United States has given millions of dollars to the Rwandan and Ugandan armies in military training and arms. The United Nations reported that the following companies serve as the engine of the conflict in the DRC.” Cabot Corporation, Boston, MA; OM Group, Cleveland, Ohio; AVX, Myrtle Beach, SC; Eagle Wings Resources International, Ohio; Kemet Electronics Corporation, Greenville, SC; and Vishay Sprague, Malvern, PA. The coltan is then processed and sold to companies such as Nokia, Motorola, Compaq, Alcatel, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Lucent, Ericsson and Sony for use in a wide assortment of everyday electronic products.
We the undersigned hereof state our demand that:

• The United States ceases the allocation of military aid in any form, including the distribution of armaments and military training to both countries of Rwanda and Uganda.

• Adopt policies toward Rwanda that promote security, freedom, and democracy in the Great Lakes Region particularly in both the Congo and Rwanda.

• Urge the Rwandan government to implement an inter-Rwandan dialogue and a democratic process that provides political space for opposition parties.

• Support the Extractive Industries Transparency Disclosure Act (H.R. 6066 and S. 3389) to promote policies and corporate responsibility in the fight against corruption and poverty.

• Support the International Violence against Women Act (IVAWA) (S.2279, HR.5927) which would consistently incorporate solutions for reducing violence against women into U.S. foreign assistance programs.

• Put pressure on the documented atrocities by the United Nations, United States based companies to stop buying conflict coltan and to make it a requirement to label there source of coltan.

• The United States of America became a member of the Kimberley Process, government industry and civil society initiative to stem the flow of conflict diamonds through the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS).

We all cannot afford blood diamonds, but we all have access to coltan. Please let’s make a collective effort to stop these atrocities.

Thank you. www.MothersforAfrica.org