How does this EVER help a war effort?
"Amnesty International said much of the sexual violence committed by all sides has been directed at ethnic groups from opposing communities. Failure by the army and rebel groups to stop or punish rape "suggests that, at the very least, they systematically condone the crime and thereby implicitly encourage its persistence on a mass scale," the group said"
People like this are totally unqualified to lead an army let alone lead a country when the fighting is done. And worse, all this does is encourage people to fight harder. In war, people die ok that is a sad truth but REALLY. In my opinion, rapist are the worst people in the world because like, you can justifiably kill someone but I don't think there is any way to justify raping a woman. This country is really messed up at this point and it does not seem to matter who wins this conflict because in the end, a large number of people will suffer
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Well I do agree that rape is a horrible crime,but I think it is a part of war. The soldiers and civilians take advantage of the vulnerability of the women. It's easier to rape a women in times of instability because they know that nobody is going to punish their crimes.
Raping might also be a way to assert their power. Sure, you can kill a man, but raping his wife is much more powerful and demoralizing as well. Sadly, I think it's just another war tactic, and they are doing it because,well, they can. I don't think that serious actions will be taken against these people until the country is more stable.
I feel bad for these women who are getting abused. A lot of them might contract HIV or other STDs, and I don't think that they will get access to the necessary treatment. Anyways, I hope justice will come soon.
It says the situation is being condoned (ignored) by the army (the government) and the rebel groups, and since they aren't doing anything about it this is basically the same as them encouraging it, which i don't exactly agree with but they certainly aren't working to stop it. But I am confused if both these groups are not opposing it, this implies they aren't DOING the raping either so who excalty is going around raping all the women? have all the men of the Congo gone mad and are running around rapping their women? Having just read a book on the Congo during the 50s through the 90s, through it's transition to Zaire and back to the Congo, this article surprised me in that it says the tribes or ethnic groups are not peaceful, (are they raping each other?) but in the 60s it seems they were all working together, against their government. Hm... interesting change...
I think when it says is that the higher up level officials on both sides are overlooking the actions of their troops so the troops are basically getting a green light because
"Failure by the army and rebel groups to stop or punish rape "suggests that, at the very least, they systematically condone the crime and thereby implicitly encourage its persistence on a mass scale," the group said"
And they wouldn't be punishing if it were not their own troops
I agree with Lauriane that rape is part of war, but I still don't think its an acceptable thing to do. It is a disgusting act, especially if it is done on innocent citizens. I think war should be restricted to killing, it shouldn't include rape or any other act of the sort. Of course, that is my little dream. War is brutal. It includes torturing and rape and so many other things. It's pretty much always been this way. It's human nature.
I never really get why rape isn't punished by the army more often. Maybe its because it is difficult to find out who actually did the raping since that person isn't going to admit to doing it. It seems like the army doesn't really have much of a way to keep tabs on all its soldiers with corruption in the army probably being so easy to conceal. But a soldier should not be someone you just give a gun to and then forget about, which probably happens a lot more in the Congo where commanders or officers with high authority are scarce, but there are a lot of lower foot soldiers doing whatever they want.
Rape in war is used to demoralized the opposing faction. The basic meaning of rape in war is as a prize for the winners and basically sending a message of "look, i'm so good at killing you that i have time to spare for raping your wives and daughters". Mostly when civilized countries and more educated countries go to war, they don't employ this tactic because it is not a tactic that is ethically considered to be acceptable to them. Plus, if a country wanted to get rid of rape from the army, it would take massive amounts of attention and MONEY, and no country is going to bother to spend money on something so inherent in war as rape.
George Chang, I don't think it really demoralizes the opponent because the conflict isn't one sided. Like, during the holocaust, rape would have been effective for demoralizing people simply because they are totally helpless but this war, there are two fighting forces. Raping angers both factions and during a civil war, it makes both sides hate each other more and this shows terrible forsight because you know, they're going to have to live together eventually. Furthermore, when the opposing side wrongs you, as a soldier it makes you want to fight more to get revenge AND it makes you less likely to trust the enemy. I mean, would you consider giving up if the enemy has been going on raping all of your people? No because you'd would realize that giving up would only put those rapists in power leading to your people suffering even mroe. Thus, you have both sides aggressively hating the other leading to the total annhilation of the country. Anyway, it is true that it does cost money to fix it, but it prolongs the war and the time it will for the country to be stable
I think it's a bit outrageous to claim that army and rebel groups actually condone the rape by not being able to stop it. I doubt it's merely about the soldiers turning a blind eye to the situation, but it is difficult to discover who the rapists actually are. Though the claims in the article of the army and rebel groups' ignorance of the rape kind of contradicts your argument that it encourages both sides to fight harder.
At this point the wars going on and genocides in Africa seem to be escalating to a point where they just arent taking anyones help or chaging to bring peace to their country. I think theyre just getting this mentality that it is so bad over there that they can do whatever they want and probably have ajusted to it all basically saying that rape is somewhat normal in the Congo. If Africa cant even solve this or bring justice to these people then who is going to? It is such a big continent and there are so many problems going on. Like other third world countries it is a stage and it needs to work itself out but that should not include all the raping of inocent women.
I'm not sure what the background to this article is, but the title says enough. I hope justice comes soon, but I think the US should stay out of it.
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