Vermont Students as Activists for the Congo

Several students from Saint Michael's College here in Vermont are making headway in their campaign to end U.S. support for Rwanda and Uganda. Both nations allegedly have made forays into the Congo and their soldiers have committed rapes and other atrocities. This effort is part of the Dear Hillary Campaign which was founded at the college. Early this year Secretary Clinton stated that the situation in the Congo was a matter of national security and it is hoped that advocacy such as this will help the U.S. live up to that assertion.

Security Council was Briefed on Congo Rapes

On October 14 the United Nations Security Council was briefed on the recent rapes that happened under noses of U.N. peacekeepers. PRI'S " The World" discusses various strategies for dealing with the situation in the Congo including an interesting program that tries to address the problem through the rapists who are often children themselves. A fictionalized account of one such case is detailed in the novel Beasts of No Nation.

Congo's Lastest Horrors

News regarding rape in the Congo rarely lets up. This article from Salon details the new allegations of the rape and murder of Congolese women at the hands of Angolan government officials. It also gets into the failure of the integration of women into the peacekeeping process on the 10 year anniversary of the U.N. resolution that was supposed to make it so.

Margot Wallstrom and the Security Council

Margot Wallstrom, the United Nations Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict informed the United Nations Security Council this week regarding the mass rape of men, women, and children in Kampal, Democratic Republic of the Congo that occurred this summer in areas patrolled by United Nations peacekeepers. Wallstrom has spent much of the last month touring the DRC taking testimony from victims. Wallstrom and others have found fault with the lack of resources devoted to the U.N. DRC Mission and response of the peacekeepers involved in it. While it seems like, a far away problem the Congo is becoming an increasingly important supplier of rare earth minerals to the United States.

Gang Rape in the Congo

Two weeks ago it was reported that several hundred women were gang raped, sometimes in front of their families by rebel militia groups in an area patrolled by the United Nations. This came at a time when Margot Wallstrom was touring the region. It is just another sad chapter in the history of this conflict. Today the U.N. Undersecretary for Peace Keeping apologized for the incident. I have spoken about the appalling lack of resources devoted to the problem in the past and their is current little indication that the United Nations will be able to change the situation in the future.

Margot Wallstrom is putting focus on the Problem of Rape in Combat

Margot Wallstrom, U.N. Special Representative on Sexual violence in Conflict has been touring Africa this summer to uncover the level of rape occurring in five conflict zones. In a CNN article she discusses important issues such as the socialization process that child soldiers are forced to endure that makes them more easily molded into a rapist. Wallstrom has been documenting the use of rape in combat as it has been supplanting other methods of violence on the battlefield.It is incredibly important work that will pave the way towards war crimes trials and assistance for the victims of these crimes.

PTSD and Rape in the Military

New regulations were announced for diagnosing U.S. veterans with PTSD that are supposed to make it easier for veterans to receive benefits however they pose a "Catch 22" for survivors of rape and other sexual trauma as detailed here. And what if the wounds did not include rape as in this case ? New regulations need to be developed in order to put sexual trauma on equal footing with other combat injuries.

Rape and Genocide: Not Just Perpetrated by Men.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents allege that a women now residing in New Hampshire committed acts of rape and murder while living in her native Rwanda during the 1994 genocide. Although these charges are highly controversial, the fact that women can be party to such acts of cruelty on the battlefield should not be surprising given that female soldiers/combatants are often socialized in the same manner as their male counter parts. Whether it is during the Balkan conflict, wars in sub-Saharan Africa, or Abu Ghraib female soldiers have utilized sexual violence. Noted psychologist Brett Kahr was not surprised by the actions committed by the men or women stationed at Abu Ghraib as in his estimation after thousands of interviews conducted regarding sexual fantasy "The crimes of Lynndie England may be regarded as concretization - an explicitization- of the very same acts the one can find as a mainstay of ordinary American and British sexual fantasy life". The war, in conjunction with reinforcement of the behavior as being normative gave them license to do that which they had only previously thought about.

Jessica Stern on her own rape.

Last week, terrorism/violence expert Jessica Stern released book regarding her own rape which she says helps explain her own interest in extreme violence. Read the article here.

The Children of Rape in Rwanda

This striking project from photo journalist Johnathan Torgovnick chronicles the aftermath of the genocidal campaign of rape in Rwanda in 1994. It follows the story of several mothers and the children that they conceived as a result of being sexually assaulted by Hutu militiamen. There stories are remarkably similar to those of women that were victimized in the former Yugoslav Republic, the Congo, and Sierra Leon. The strategy employed by the militiamen was simple, any children conceived out of their criminal act would be at least in part Hutu and most of Africa only the "male" lineage counts, thus negating an entire generation of children that would have otherwise been born Tutsi.

I wrote this in 2006 regarding a piece of literature regarding the genocidal rape situation in Bosnia which has striking parallels to the Rwandan situation:

Serbia would become the most prolific executer of this genocidal ideal during the Balkan conflict of the 1990s. They resurrected the concentration camp for use in ethnic cleansing operations on European soil for the first time since the defeat of the Third Reich in 1945. The most disturbing element of their plan to exact genocide upon the Bosnian and Croatian populations was their use of rape camps. S is the fictional composite sketch of one such camp, as seen through the eyes of a young Bosnian Muslim school teacher named S. In these camps, Bosnian women were subjected to humiliation that was in many ways worse than death. This type of denegation was used to augment the killing and cultural destruction that was occurring both within and outside their walls. S was first raped by three soldiers in the camp and she was utterly dehumanized even before the violation occurs and Drakulic states “Now she is standing naked in the office, learning against the wall. She is surrounded by hunters. She can feel them crawl all over her. They are wet, slimy, hot, as they touch her nipples and descend her belly into her loins. This is perhaps the worst thing that will engrave itself on her memory: the eyes of the strange men reveling in their trophy just before the attack”. [21] The strategy that was being pursued within the camps was even more diabolical than state sanctioned rape centers in and of themselves. Beverly Allen in her book Rape Warfare coined the term “genocidal rape” to describe the Serbian policy that was conducted within the rape centers. Serbian leaders not only wished to totally dominate Bosnian Muslim women but wish to use their bodies as incubators for Serbian babies.[22]Allen sums up the absurdity of the idea when she states that “Initially the idea that Serbs could kill off the Bosnian- Herzegovina and Croatian peoples by producing more of them, by fathering babies was utterly ludicrous…I finally understood that to its perpetrators such a equation was possible on the condition that they cancel every aspect of the mother’s identity….other than that as sexual container.” [23] S is subjected to this grim fate, and is forced to carry the baby to term. She views the being inside of her as “a tumor which will grow and spread and become increasingly visible and her body as mere receptacle, like a rent a womb” [24] This was not the first time that rape was used in an attempt to form the foundation of nation state. The rape of the Sarbines women by the army of Romulus is central to the creation story of Rome, for the children born of these unholy unions would go on to become its first citizens. Allen argues that the rape of the Sarbines Women was essentially an act of creation and not one of destruction, as is the case with the rape of the women of Serbia[25]. Serbian leaders, however, most likely missed this philosophical distinction and might have used this myth as a blue print towards their genocidal aims.

Ohio Prisoner Punished for Reporting Rape

This piece from Mother Jones details the rape of an inmate at the Ohio Reformatory Woman. The shocking lack of investigation and subsequent treatment of Michelle Ortiz, the inmate in question, are issues that are now making their way to the U.S. Supreme Court. I was an Intern with the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction in the Security Threat Group. While I worked with a good group of people the attitude that surrounded the issue of rape was general in-credulousness. I was funded under the department's allotment of grant monies stemming from the Prison Rape Elimination Act even though my duties had nothing to with the prevention of rape (especially staff on inmate assault). It is interesting to note that several of the guards at Abu Ghraib including Charles Graner were civilian correctional officers before their service in the army where their skills regarding abuse were refined and brought to the Iraq War. The Standford Prison Experiment highlighted the lengths that Correctional Officers might go to in order to humiliate prisoners(including sexual humiliation) but its lessons were not heeded until more than twenty years latter when the photos of Abu Ghraib surfaced.

Army Interregator Threatened Child Soldier with Rape

Evidence has been brought to light that accused Taliban fighter Omar Khadr was threaten with rape during an interrogation session in 2002. Khadr was just a teenager when he was accused to killing a U.S. solder in Afghanistan. He had been held without trial for over nine years until his recent appearances for a Military Commission. His treatment has flown in the face of numerous treaties regarding the treatment of children in which the U.S. is a signatory. The recent evidence came from the testimony of an a former Army Interrogator that had questioned Khadr 8 years ago. I have written about Khadr's case here previously. This adds another twist to a sad story that is not inconstant with the detainee abuse events of Abu Gharib or Bagram Air Base as featured in the documentaries Standard Operating Procedure and Taxi to the Darkside.

Peacekeepers in the Congo

The U.N. Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict Margot Wallstrom was in the Congo two weeks ago to advocate for an extension of the U.N. mission in the country. All though peacekeepers have been linked to some atrocities in the country, it is widely believed that if the U.N. is forced to leave conditions for women and girls in the country will worsen. Wallstrom has an uphill battle to fight in a country whose conflict has been the deadliest since World War II, which was characterized by a recent article in Foreign Policy magazine as being less of traditional war and more akin to "organized banditry".

Black Hearts and War Crimes

In a new book journalist Jim Fredricks chronicles the leaderships failures that helped lead to the 2006 rape and murder of a young Iraqi girl and her family at the hands of U.S. troops. I have written about this incident before but this book has new details about the factors that helped further one of the most infamous crimes of the Iraq war.

Women are not just victims.... A Different Perspective on Rape in the U.S. Military

The piece written by Lt. Jessica Scott is for the PBS series regarding women in war. It touches on the fact that a woman's accomplishments in and contributions to the military are not defined by and large by victim-hood. Scott had a positive refection on her service and stated that "In the Army I serve, women and men are treated based on their performance and how they carry themselves." (This type of blame the victim mentality by is explained this study)She goes on to state that "The media claims that nearly one-third of service women have experienced sexual abuse. This percentage is certainly higher than anyone should find acceptable, but those who suffer abuse are still in the minority". She blames the media for a lack of positive stories regarding women in combat and ends her piece by saying "We are soldiers and spouses and sisters and mothers and wives and daughters. We are not just victims, bitches, sluts or dykes.To the mainstream media: please stop telling America that's all we are." Author Kelly Oliver refers to this assertion in her book "Women's Bodies as Weapons of War" as the virgin/whore dichotomy. Oliver, like Scott, believes that women have either been portrayed as virgins as in the case PFC. Jessica Lynch or whores as was the case for Lyndie England by the media during the war in Iraq. It is not just the media rallying around these accounts. It is the Pentagon who needed a hero or a scape goat to complete their own narratives. I cannot discount Scott's experiences however; she can only speak for herself in this matter as many other women have ones that differ greatly.

The Comfort Women of Korea are still Remembered Today

This article was drafted as part of the Korea Times 60th Anniversary series.It details the history of the "Comfort Women" who were forced to work as prostitutes by the Kempeitai or Japanese Military Police during World War II. This was problem felt by a whole generation of women that were exploited from China to the Dutch East Indies by Japanese forces during World War II. It was felt most intensely in Korea, as Korea was a province of Japan at the time. "The Comfort Women" by Nora Okja Keller(pictured above) is a novel that encompasses the reality of the time in a way that many non fiction sources are unable to do. It is a must read for anyone who wishes to have a fuller understanding of the time period and the events surrounding the Comfort Women.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declares that international opression of women is national securtity threat

On March 10th Secretary of State Hillary Clinton addressed the United Nations regarding the rights of women. It was Clinton, who in 2009 traveled to the Congo to discuss rape as a tool of war. She had this to say regarding rape in combat zones during an interview after her speech:

When you have women who are denied their rights, it’s often in cultures that are prone to extremism. We’ve seen that again and again. And generally, it is such a challenge to American values and American interests when you have half a population of a country denied the fundamental rights that we stand for.

And if you look across conflict zones, where we spend a lot of our time worrying, from Afghanistan to the Democratic Republic of Congo to Somalia to Yemen, every place that we worry about is a place where women are denied their rights...............QUESTION: You mentioned violence against women, rape as a tool of war. And how do you change that mindset, the culture of abusing women? Because after all, in some conflict zones, you’ve even had UN staff raping women.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Jill, this is one of the worst manifestations of the oppression and terrible abuse that women face around the world. I remember reading Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s autobiography. I admire her so much. She is the president of Liberia, the first woman elected to lead an African nation. And she went through this horrible period during the civil war in her country and, at one point really feared for her life and really feared that she was going to be attacked. And she tried to talk to these young men who were so menacing. And at one point, she said, “Well, think of your mothers.” She said to this day, she doesn't know why she wasn’t attacked.

And part of what I’m trying to figure out is how do we find the language that cuts across cultures, that tries to interrupt a rampage of violence, a sense of entitlement, of power that too often motivates the fighters in these various conflicts around the world so that they stop and think and they regain some sense of humanity.

So we have taken very seriously the whole issue of gender and sexual-based violence. I was privileged to chair the Security Council when they adopted a resolution condemning it and putting forth more United Nations efforts to try to combat it. But it’s gratuitous. You could go back in history and you can always find marauding armies that pillaged and raped along the way, but now it’s almost as though that’s the purpose of it. It is to subjugate women. It is to use women as a prize in armed conflict. And we just have to stand so strongly against that. It is just barbaric and inhuman.

Former General blamed Gay Dutch Soldiers for the Massacre at Srebrenica

Former Supreme Allied Commander for NATO General John Sheehan asserted during a Senate hearing that due to the fact there were gay soldiers in the Dutch peacekeeping force at Srebrenica Serbs were allowed to overrun the town. This is a patently ridiculous notion. The massacre was largely allowed to happen due to restrictions imposed on the force stationed there by the UN Security Council.The General also stated that rape and sodomy would increase if don't ask don't tell was repealed while ignoring the rise in rape allegations of a mostly heterosexual nature during 2009. It also discounts the fact that male on male rape and sexual harassment occurs in the supposedly totally heterosexual military and that some accusers are then labeled as homosexuals after they report the assault.

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UN appoints Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict

Last month the United Nations appointed a Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict. She is already hard at work in several African countries. This is a positive, if only symbolic step as rape has only been recognized as a war crime by the International Criminal Court since 2001 and it was only in 2008 that the United Nations recognized rape during conflict as a crime against humanity. It is hoped that having a high level representative will raise the level of consciousness of the issue in the world community.

Law and Order SVU highlights War Rape in the Congo

This week Law and Order:SVU featured a story line regarding the rape of women during the current conflict in the Congo. This is an interesting intersection of popular culture and the phenomenon of rape during wartime. The SVU series has long been a curious dichotomy between our society's revulsion regarding sexual violence and its desire voyeuristically examine it. Mariska Hargitay, the star of the series wrote a companion piece that explores the origins of the conflict.

Congo in the VDAY Spotlight

Rape in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is at levels that one can barely fathom. This issue has garnered a lot of attention recently due to a high profile visit last year by Secretary Hillary Clinton. For this year's VDAY coinciding with Woman's History Month the plight of the Congo is being highlighted. I first wrote about the problem in 2008 and and the problem has only grown since then.

See a trailer for the 2008 documentary The Greatest Silence:Rape in the Congo

Women at War: BBC goes indepth

The BBC has been running a series regarding the experience of women in combat this week. In the this piece the BBC attacked the problem of sexual assault in the U.S. military. It largely recalls the details of the ongoing problem but its also covers the harrowing story of soldier who faced courts martial if she reported the crime that occurred against her because she did not have here weapon with her during assault which is mandatory in a combat zone. This blame the victim mentality apparently is even common amongst women according according to a new study that that surveyed more than 1000 women in the U.K. and found that 20 percent of those surveyed blamed the victim for the assault if she had done something to precipitate it. It seems that many people including women have a lot to learn about sexual assault.

Learning No Lessons regarding the Psychological Health of Soldiers

A piece in Time Magazine this week details how the military disregarded signs of mental illness in several soldiers before the Fort Hood incident who went on to commit murder including Pfc. Steven Green. Green, you may recall, took part in one of the most infamous incidents of violence in the Iraq War when he and four other soldiers raped and murdered a 14 year old Iraqi girl. During a psychological examination Green stated that he had no hobbies "Other than killing Iraqis". One of Green's fellow soldiers, James Baker illuminated his own attitude at sentencing. The entire incident in outlined in the partially fictionalized Brian De Palma film Redacted.

Suicide and Sexual Abuse at a Navy Kennel

This is probably the most under reported military story of 2009. The investigation by Youth Radio International details the suicide of a female sailor assigned to a military working dog group with the United States Navy, Jennifer Valdivia. The piece details a sordid and complicated chain of events in which she was both the victim and perpetrator of abuse during her time in the military that ultimately led to her suicide. This story is made all the more disturbing given the role that dogs played in the Abu Gharib incident and it highlights the prevalence of hostility towards women in the military more generally.

U.N. Fails to Protect women in the Congo from rape

A new report is out from Human Rights Watch that details the deaths of more than 1,400 Congolese civilians at the hands of rebel and government forces during UN. backed operations in the eastern part of the country this year. Several thousand women were also raped by both sides as punishment for alleged collaboration with one side or the other. This is not the first time a U.N. Peace Keeping mission has failed to protect civilians.

- 1992 Militias are able to stay in control of the county of Somalia after U.N pull out.

- 1994 U.N. fails to allow its peacekeepers to intervene in Rwanda allowing for the deaths of over 800,000 Rwandans in 100 days.

- 1995 U.N. forces failed to protect the safe haven of Srebrenica, Bosnia allowing the deaths of 8,000 Bosnian men and boys.

A Peril in War Zones: Sexual Abuse by Fellow G.I.’s

This was the headline in a story that ran today in the New York Times regarding sexual misconduct and rape in the military. It is perennial problem that continues to be largely discounted by the U.S. military despite recent steps combat it. The article states according to the Pentagon that fewer than 10% of sexual assault incidents are reported. In 2005, Congresswoman Jane Harman, of the House Armed Services Committee received an unreleased Pentagon study detailing the extent of sexual misconduct in the reserve components of the U.S. Armed Forces. It revealed that 27 % of male soldiers experienced what the report termed "military sexual trauma" which includes verbal harassment as well as touching and other unwanted sexual behavior. The prevalence of women experiencing the same behavior is at 60%. 3% of males reported actually having been sexually assaulted (i.e. raped, sodomized, etc) and 23 % of women reported the same. The GAO recently released a report that the article links to which details the poor implemetation of the Petagon's anti-sexual violence measures. The report also states that services for men who have been raped are almost nonexistent. This conclusion is bolstered by a 2004 Boston Globe story "Sexual Assault in the Shadows" that details how the military has labeled the male victim of rape in the military as being homosexual in the past.