Ed Royce: “since violence in the Congo escalated several weeks ago, an estimated 3,000 lives have been lost. What started as an…”

“since violence in the Congo escalated several weeks ago, an estimated 3,000 lives have been lost. What started as an effort by Congo President Pascal Lissouba to safeguard the upcoming election by neutralizing the so-called cobra militia which is operated by a political rival, this situation has degenerated into ethnic cleansing and into political wrangling. All this has developed beneath the media's radar. As the world watched the unraveling of the Mobutu regime in the neighboring country then known as Zaire, now the Congo, the Congo itself was seen as a safe haven for refugees from the collapsing nation. Western nations sent military forces to Congo to evacuate their citizens from Zaire. So it was shocking to find several weeks later that foreign nationals had to be evacuated from Congo Brazzaville and that refugees from that nation were running for safety to what is now sometimes called Congo-Kinshasa. Today nearly a quarter of the population of the capital city of Brazzaville has left town to avoid being caught in the fighting. Unfortunately, these refugees have found themselves stopped along the way, and if they belong to the wrong ethnic group, militia men do what is called there making them travel, and to make someone travel means being taken away and killed. More than 2,500 Congolese were killed in ethnic fighting after the disputed 1993 election, and now ethnic tensions in the central African nation has dramatically worsened.”