Africa News blog
African business, politics and lifestyle
Must we see rape in Britain to understand rape in Congo?
I was left somewhat traumatised after going to see a screening of a controversial new Hollywood-backed short released this week, aimed at highlighting the link between minerals mined for British mobile phones and the use of rape and murder as weapons of war in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The highly graphic campaign video – appropriately called Unwatchable – starts with a little English girl picking flowers in the garden of her family’s multi-million pound mansion in a picturesque Cotswolds village.
This tranquil scene is shattered in an instant when armed men descend on the house, gang-rape her sister on the kitchen table and then murder her parents. It ends five minutes later with the girl running for her life.
“We placed it in a sort of cliché idyllic countryside, and tracing it back to mobile phones would make it relevant to people on the street,” Marc Hawker of production company DarkFibre told AlertNet.
“It’s a foreign story and that’s how people think. We wanted to target 16 to 30-year-olds who know nothing about what is happening,” said Hawker, who wrote and directed the film.
The film is based on the story of a woman from eastern Congo, Masika, and her family’s suffering at the hands of militia, re-enacted in rural England. According to Hawker, Masika was made to eat her husband’s flesh before the rebels mutilated and killed him, and then raped her and her daughters.
“We wanted people to imagine what is going on in the Congo,” said Vava Tampa, director of Save the Congo, a human rights group made up of London-based Congolese students and professionals which is backing the campaign. “If they can imagine what is happening on the ground then perhaps we will be compelled to take more action.”
Has Clinton visit helped offset China’s clout in Africa?
U.S Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s 10 day trip to Africa ends this week with many commentators viewing it at least partly as being aimed at offsetting China’s growing economic clout on the African continent. In public, Clinton has delivered Washington’s traditional messages on the importance of fair elections and of fighting corruption and human rights abuses.
But the fact that top oil producers Angola and Nigeria are both on the tour has made clear the importance of the visit from the perspective of ensuring access to resources – an area of huge importance to China too.
China’s trade in Africa hit $107 billion in 2008 and there are now 750,000 Chinese workers living and working in Africa. Sources in both Washington, D.C. and Africa confirmed that Clinton’s subtle diplomatic strategy is to offer African leaders infrastructure assistance in exchange for oil resources and increased energy investments on the African continent.
China, meanwhile, may be marshalling reserves to help kick start African economies and fuel demand as well as to secure access to its resources.
In the past, Beijing has always argued that it is still a very poor country on per capita basis so cannot afford foreign aid. China’s foreign aid was only 0.04 percent of its gross domestic product, only a fraction of the U.S. percentage of 0.4 percent and Europe’s 0.7 percent.
But the financial crisis has changed this. While the downturn has crimped U.S. and Europeans companies’ ability to expand overseas, Chinese firms, awash with cash, are keen to look for new growth opportunities in new markets.
Has Hillary’s visit helped to offset the Chinese push? What value can her words carry against Beijing’s ready cash? Should China be concerned that Washington may be catching up with its own push into Africa?
yes why ain’t America put attention on his own affair…. why we’re looking forward to china?
It is good that someone cares enough to do something to stop the atrocities. I hope that after seeing this re-enactment, more people will care and pressure manufacturers to do the right thing, applying pressure where it will help. I hope that this re-enactment will encourage and embolden people to raise awareness of this important issue, and lead to the understanding that rape of African women is just as intolerable as rape of blonde-haired, blue-eyed women.