Please look at the picture on the left. It was taken by the investigative journalist Keith Herman Snow. The author of the photo who has already signed the concerned petition explains the context of the picture. This is what he says to the organisation Don’t Be Blind This Time for using it:
“Thank you for honoring the woman in the photograph whose suffering and fear are so palpable. What moved me most however was her courage in standing up to the soldiers to plead for the lives of her family.“
The scene in the picture is common in the Democratic Republic of Congo since 1996. There are those who don’t try to protect their own lives or those of their people. The woman in the picture is trying. Those who don’t, particularly in the DRC, increase daily the number of victims of the genocide the country experiences.
The sadness of the woman in the picture is the same as that of millions of Congolese and it calls upon on our common humanity to do something. And some people don’t effectively remain indifferent.
BK Kumbi and her sisters Dungu, Pika, Kibala and Mumbuono decided to launch this petition that they would like to see as many people as possible around the world signing.
The importance of the petition
The continuing war in DR Congo has caused the death of more than 8 million people. The latter have been savagely murdered and nobody has been investigated or charged for those crimes. The fact that a major crime against humanity takes place thousands miles away from Western countries makes it not less of a crime and all crimes must be accounted for.
Acknowledging the genocide against the people of the DR Congo is a prerequisite to peace. Naming the aggressors of the DR Congo state and those who practice ethnic cleansing in the region will help to show that the Congolese population has systematically been subjected to killings as a national group, that they experienced serious bodily or mental harm, that they were deliberately inflicted conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction in whole or in part, that they were imposed measures intended to prevent births within the group, and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Taking this decision will definitely put the principle of justice in the hands of the innocents and not the guilty. The people of the Congo do not need charity from the rest of the world but justice and fairness. The authors of the petition therefore hope that you will not turn a blind eye on the terrible ordeal the populations of the Great Lakes region, especially Congolese people, are going through.
To sign the petition, please click HERE.
After signing, please ask all your friends also to do so.
Herman von Hebel, the Registrar of the International Criminal Court, after his recent visit in the Democratic Republic of Congo from 23 to 26 June 2013, declared that there was no need for a particular Tribunal for DRCongo to investigate war crimes, crimes against humanity and even those of genocide nature committed in that country during the last 16 years.
He finds that ICC can judge such crimes, but considered the remit and approach followed by that court; Congolese and other concerned populations of the Great Lakes region cannot expect much from this jurisdiction. Consequently, they should find alternatives to get justice.
During his visit to Tanzania, Barack Obama himself recognized that he cannot do much for the Congolese people. It is then to the people [Congolese and others concerned in any place of the globe] to demonstrate vigorously what they want.
Rising Continent 