Currently viewing the tag: "Democratic Republic of Congo"

This week, I interviewed Fred Bauma and Sylvain Saluseke, democracy activists from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Both were arrested by Congolese security forces on March 18, 2015. Sylvain was held over a month and Fred remained in prison until August 2016 (more on this herehere, here, here and here). In this interview, […]

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I would like to introduce you to Sylvain Mbiye (Mushiba) Saluseke. He is the husband of a friend of mine, and a Congolese civil society activist. I introduce you to him because he has been detained without charges by Congolese security services in Kinshasa since March 17. His plight is both personal and historic. It is, of course, deeply painful for his family and loved ones, and it is also a small thread in the unraveling political story in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The longer he is detained, the worse is the fate of the country’s future. This is true not because of anything that Saluseke himself might have done or might yet do; rather, it is true because his continued detention serves as warning of how the government will act as the elections of 2016 approach.

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I am a freelance writer and editor who has lived and worked off and on in central Africa for 25 years. I am writing to call your attention to this week’s Congressional hearing on Dodd-Frank 1502. Held by the Monetary Policy and Trade subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee, the hearing examined the unintended […]

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The ongoing crisis in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where up to 6 million excess deaths have been recorded since 1998 and government neither controls nor governs its territory in a meaningful sense, is cause for concern to the international community and the United States government.  The D.R. Congo is home to more than […]

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This essay is cross-posted on the blog that Kate Cronin-Furman authors with Amanda Taub, Wronging Rights.

Amanda and I spent the second half of last week at a World Peace Foundation seminar on “Western Advocacy in Conflict.” It was lots of fun. (If your idea of fun involves assorted cheese cubes and extremely detailed […]

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In 2002, the various warring parties in the Congo signed a peace deal that brought about a formal end to the war that had lasted since 1998. While the peace deal was successful in reuniting the country in a transitional government, and producing credible elections in 2006, it did not bring an end to the […]

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