HIV infected rebels deployed to rape women, children in Congo war

Grimmlok · August 14th, 2006, 11:12 AM

Good god almighty.

Quote:

About 2,000 rebels infected with the deadly HIV virus were conscripted to rape women and children in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1998-99 in a bid to spread the lethal virus, a new report alleges.

The allegations levelled at the African countries of Uganda and Rwanda are contained in a report written by McMaster University professor Ed Mills and Johns Hopkins University professor Jean Nachega that is being circulated at the 16th annual AIDS conference in Toronto.

The report includes a copy of a complaint filed by Congo's government in 1999 with the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights in the war with the two countries.

In its 16-page complaint, Congo alleged that "about 2,000 AIDS-suffering or HIV-positive Ugandan soldiers were sent to the front in the eastern province of Congo with the mission of raping girls and women so as to propagate an AIDS pandemic among the local population and, thereby, decimate it."

Rwanda and Uganda have each claimed that Congo did not have the right to file a complaint with the human rights commission.

While rape has been employed by armies in Africa and elsewhere, this would be the first instance where soldiers actively tried to spread HIV and AIDS, Mills said in an interview.

Children as young as one were raped by the infected solders, Mills said.

"I've seen war crimes of every possible stripe, but if this is substantiated, it's a first," said James Orbinski, president and co-founder of aid agency Dignitas International.

Congo has been an epicentre for conflict for years. Several non-governmental groups have said the country has witnessed more deaths due to violence than any conflict since World War II, mostly through malnutrition. Between 1998 and 2003, some 4 million people lost their lives.

The United Nations Security Council initially sent troops to Congo, formerly Zaire, in 1999 to monitor a ceasefire that ended its fight against Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.

That UN deployment was increased in February 2000, but violence has continued in the West African nation. Mills said the evidence that Ugandan and Rwandan troops purposefully spread HIV should compel the recently formed African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights to hear the charges against the two countries.

African foreign ministers earlier this year elected judges to preside over the new human rights court. The court was formed to give victims of war crimes the chance to seek compensation against governments.

News of allegations didn't come as a surprise to NGO workers with experience in sub-Saharan Africa.

Don Kilby, with the Canada-Africa Community Health Alliance, which supports an orphanage near the Congo-Ugandan border, said "it's common knowledge over there that if they don't kill you they can still hurt you by spreading AIDS and HIV ... so that the country's blood isn't pure any more."

Kilby said in his group's orphanage, for instance, there's one 4-year-old boy who was castrated by rebels as an infant.

"They cut off his penis and testicles, the whole thing so that he wouldn't make any more Congo babies," Kilby said. "That's the cruelty of war."

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Con...l=968350060724

Delphinium · August 14th, 2006, 02:39 PM

can we please just drop a big bomb on Africa and call it a day?!

cynic · August 14th, 2006, 02:45 PM

I've been having suspicions that you are, in actuality, Condoleezza Rice. Now I'm more sure.......

The Bush Administration is looking for a few good women like yourself.....I hate to see wasted talent.....shouldn't you be checking shoes somewhere?

moomies · August 14th, 2006, 02:50 PM

My BIL's coworker was threatened and mugged by some bum claiming to have AIDs. Sad that a horrible disease like this has to be used to terrorize ppl.

AliceInWonderland · August 14th, 2006, 02:57 PM

well according to that film on the great HIV/AIDS myth posted by SVZ a couple weeks ago...well i'm not scared anymore and thats all I'll say about that BUT this story makes me sick and I hate men and always have and always will and I like how the US govt. and rest of western modernized world ignore this shit for far too long! Its disgusting.

Grimmlok · August 14th, 2006, 02:58 PM

Excuse me, but last time I checked i was a man!

*flounces off, feelings hurt, to slap himself till he cries and then write a song about it*

cynic · August 14th, 2006, 03:02 PM

Oh, yeah, women would do a much better job of running the world. So calm and unemotional. Not ones to let petty things bother them.

AliceInWonderland · August 14th, 2006, 03:07 PM

what the fuck is wrong w/ being emotional or having compassion?!

Grimmlok · August 14th, 2006, 03:09 PM

OVERLY emotional

cynic · August 14th, 2006, 03:11 PM

.....not ones to let petty things bother them......

Signed,
Petty Thing

AliceInWonderland · August 14th, 2006, 03:12 PM

well i have anger problems; but i blame that on my genes/family/ethnicities not my womanhood and capability to create life in my own body and bring forth to the world the 2nd coming of Christ himself OhMighty!

JEALOUS!?!