Word: congo
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...three years since then, some things in Congo have improved. Mining firms have returned, and cell-phone companies--particularly welcome in a country that has just a few thousand fixed lines serving more than 60 million people--are doing a booming business. But in some parts of the country, the fighting has never really stopped. The U.N.'s peacekeeping force has got tougher in the past year, chasing rebels and apprehending or even killing them, but the force lacks the numbers to impose complete order. Congolese troops who are supposed to be helping the U.N. peacekeepers have proved ineffective...
...millions of Congolese like Esperance Live, every day seems to bring a fight for survival. TIME met her last year in a rundown government hospital in Bunia, a dusty town in Congo's northeast. Her son Jonathan, 2, was propped up on a tangled wad of clothes atop a rusting bed; he hadn't moved his limbs or spoken for weeks. Live had already endured a lifetime of sorrow. She lost two children to treatable illnesses. Her sister, her father and an aunt were all murdered in attacks by one of the ethnic militias that terrorize this corner of Congo...
...Congo's history often seems like an uninterrupted tale of woe. After decades of often brutal foreign rule, first as the private possession of King Leopold II of Belgium and then as a Belgian colony, Congo won its independence in 1960. But within months its first elected Prime Minister had been killed by Belgium- and U.S.-backed opponents because of his growing ties to the Soviet Union, an assassination that eventually opened the way for army general Mobutu Sese Seko to grab power. A U.S. favorite during the cold war, Mobutu presided over one of the most corrupt regimes...
...things got worse. In 1998, after Kabila got too friendly with the Interahamwe, Uganda and Rwanda invaded Congo again, triggering what became known as Africa's first world war. The scramble for power and resources dragged in forces from at least eight African neighbors, spawned a myriad of Congolese factions and set off campaigns of ethnic cleansing. Kabila, as nasty and corrupt as his predecessor, was shot dead by one of his bodyguards in 2001. His son Joseph, 29, assumed power. One year later, after some arm twisting by continental power South Africa (whose leaders recognize the crucial role Congo...
...troops in Ituri in the northeast forced at least 4,500 refugees out of a camp because they suspected militia fighters were sheltering there. Some Congolese units have split back into their rebel and ethnic parts and turned on one another. The upsurge in rapes, killings and torture by Congo's security forces has become so serious that the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo is debating whether to end its cooperation with the police and army altogether...