The Monsters Of The Congo River Basin
It took me several days to put my thoughts together to write this piece. The episode nearly made me crazy among the tall trees of the Congo.
I am sad because I cannot give full report on this page because I would expose my dear friend and guide, Abel Goumba, who helped me to document the heinous atrocities being committed by human beings who had turned themselves into monsters.
I also felt bad because despite the fact that some news agencies have been highlighting human rights abuses on many television networks, the full story had not been told.
Recently, I saw some of my colleague journalists coming out of their cars to enter their offices and they were later followed by my boss, Gina Ama Blay to start work which usually focuses on the monotonous NDC Rawlingses/Mills and NPP Nana Akufo Addo news.
As I looked on, my mind went back to what I saw in that impenetrable forest of the Congo basin and tears flowed down my eyes. I know if I narrate such stories, they would never believe it because I do not have any proof like video footage to show them. The full report would be released later when Abel gives us permission.
The Holy Bible states that our deeds on earth would follow us after death and we shall be judged according to what we do here on earth. I am sure the punishment for all the atrocities being committed in that region would be something else. I am hopeful that the Phenomenon called Jehovah God would faithfully punish the fiends.
My dear readers, I am still on my last week's account about my forage into the Congo Basin with Dr. Marie Foulard, a member of the European branch of International Organization for Migration to do some project on the atrocities being committed by the various rebel groups, who are raping and trafficking women and children in the war ravaged Congo River Basin.
Indeed, sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is being used as an instrument of war in the ensuing conflict and I saw with my own naked eyes what the rebel soldiers were doing to women, children (girls). It was horrible.
I couldn't sleep the first day that I went to a rebel camp and saw 'things.'
The first victim I saw was a young woman of about twenty years who had been raped repeatedly and had her face burnt. My dear readers, it is not only the scale of the rape that is significant but the brutality that often accompanies it. Guns, sticks and tin cans were inserted into the vaginas of women who had been raped.
I wondered when this would end for Almighty God to bring down judgment, it was too horrifying.
People have argued that the endless war was due to the over $24 trillion of mineral wealth believed to be below the Congolese earth. Many militias continue to fight for control of those mines and the roads.
The Congolese war, the world's bloodiest since World War II, began in 1996, The Rwandan civil war spilled into the country.
In the thick jungle, abducted girls who at times served as cooks, maids, porters, scouts, soldiers and sex slaves were kept in holes or tied securely to trees especially when they prove stubborn. They were often treated to “barbaric” acts of torture and they are beaten with clubs, cut with knives or sexually assaulted with guns.
A traumatized woman, who was rescued by some brave locals, told me that armed rebels also cut babies from the bellies of pregnant women after raping them.
Dear readers, you would read more of my exploits in the kingdom of the monsters.
By Amos Amaglo