Tony Iltis interviewed on Iranian television
By Tony Iltis
November 7, 2008 — Despite Western media and politicians having largely ignored a decade of genocidal warfare that has cost 6 million lives, the recent upsurge in fighting in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has drawn not only media attention, but visits to the region by the British and French foreign ministers and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.
The current round of fighting in North Kivu province, which began on October 26 with an offensive by the Rwandan-backed rebel forces of General Laurent Nkunda, is indeed a humanitarian catastrophe — 200,000 people have been displaced, many not for the first time.
Refugee camps have been burned. There has been widespread looting, rape and murder by both government troops and Nkunda’s rebels, as well as by other militias involved in the fighting.