Understanding the Congo

The events that have been happening in the Congo are truly one of the worlds great tragedies, yet we pay little attention to what's going on there. Millions of war deaths have taken place, more then 3.5 million refugees have fled the country. But even for those trying to understand what's going on, the complexities are stunning. Over 20 rebel groups are fighting, it involves the armies of nine countries and the objectives and causes are even murkier. Jason Stearns is a human right activist who has worked for the United Nations on peacekeeping missions in Congo and whose understanding of the complexity and nuance of the Congo are unparalleled. He tries to explain it us in his book Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa My conversation with Jason Stearns: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}