Veni, Vidi, not so much Vici

U.S Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton was in the DRC this week. She had a number of high level meetings along with visiting Goma, in Eastern Congo and ground zero for the worst sexual violence in the world. As the New York Times reported, Secretary Clinton announced measures to combat the sexual violence.

“Mrs. Clinton used her unprecedented visit — she is the first secretary of state to venture into the war zone here — to unveil a $17 million plan to fight Congo’s stunning levels of sexual violence, a problem she called “evil in its basest form.”

She announced that the American government would train doctors, supply rape victims with video cameras to document violence, send American military engineers to help build facilities and train Congolese police officers, especially female police officers, to crack down on rapists.”

Video cameras? To document the violence? This isn’t Survivor: DRC or Big Brother, this is genocide of the female race and we are going to ask the women to tape it? To what end? If it’s to identify the perpetrators, guess what? Many of the victims know who raped them – men in uniform. If it’s to tell the world what is happening, guess what? This has been going on for 12 years. 12 years activists and organizations have been screaming from the rooftops “PUT YOUR ATTENTION HERE!”

And what exactly is the American government going to train Congolese doctors on – repairing fistulas? Rebuilding women and girls’ reproductive tracts that have been so horribly destroyed? I would daresay after 12 years it is the Congolese doctors who could train the American ones.

I appreciate the Secretary of State’s visit, I do. She is the first in 12 years. Secretaries of State under President Clinton and President Bush were unacceptably silent on the issue of the DRC.
But with all due respect the action plan unveiled this week is bullshit.

Training takes time. The women and the girls of the DRC do not have any. The raping will continue with impunity as it has done and the 23 militia groups who mill about the jungle waiting to perpetrate fresh hell on some who have already been victimized more than once will simply carry on.

The real solution is boots on the ground. We struggle with our reasons for being in Afghanistan and in the case of the Americans, with being in Iraq. I venture if you tell your nation you are sending your soldiers, strong and courageous and with the full weight of an advanced military, to stop 3 year old girls from being raped to death (raped to death – just let that wash over you for a moment) everyone would understand why we are there.

I know, I know – we can’t be everywhere. We can’t solve every problem in the world and hey, have you heard? There’s an economic crisis and let’s face it ensuring the survival of GM, AIG and Goldman’s is far more pressing than some little girl in the DRC with a gun stuck up her vagina.

There is such a thing as a moral imperative in this world. The concentration camps of Nazi Germany were one. The Killing Fields of Cambodia were another. As was the war in Bosnia and the genocide in Rwanda and as is the genocide in Darfur. The DRC? It is an absolute moral imperative. Of course as I look over that list and see how the world reacted, it’s clear that we have yet to learn our lesson. Our inaction is predictable.

Some reading this will say I should be grateful for the first steps Secretary Clinton has made. At least she’s trying etc, etc. Unfortunately, I’m a bit of an expert in deciphering “diplomatese” and so there is no gratitude forthcoming.

The world needs to act on the DRC. But as I read the media coverage from her trip it’s clear to me they have moved on to the next story, the next photo op. And I daresay, some have missed the plot completely. In covering Clinton’s visit to the DRC, Tina Brown, former editor of both Vanity Fair and the New Yorker, chose to report this about Clinton:

…the African humidity had wreaked havoc on her hair. It had gone all flat and straight, which puts any woman in a bad humor. (Let's not forget: It was a sympathetic reference to the female-specific chore of keeping perfectly coiffed that made Hillary's eyes fill with tears back in New Hampshire.) Plus, the grueling State Department schedule means these days she can never get to the gym.

The media is supposed to help demand accountability. The DRC is just their latest epic fail.

As for Secretary Clinton, she came, she saw and she really didn’t do much else.