Image 23. Taking the position of the mother for a moment. At home with my baby in my arms, waiting for the men bringing the coffin. My baby! Whose life in this world was one month less than the time she spent inside me. No, I can’t imagine but I am trying and feel my heart is aching. There are so many un-necessary deaths from easily-preventable illnesses in this world. Some argue that there are too many babies – let them. I am just thinking of the suffering – of so many mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters in the world.

What always shocks me about it is the timeline at the end. It seems to start forever-ago, and goes right up to yesterday.

http://www.anthropographia.org/2.0/

Not easy. But so important.

Best,

Mike.

Also, to all, Marcus’ work in Mother Jones this month is so well featured, and I encourage anyone who can to pick up a copy and read the article.

again, thank you…Erica McDonald

I said BBC do it very well on their own. You seem to agree. Why duplicate this energy? Why not create an alternative voice, a more direct one? Your example with Joanna Lumley is a perfect example of how direct advocacy can work. Her approach is EXACTLY how HRW and I have been working for the last 10 years with DRC. It is exactly how we worked with Metalor Technologies and Anglo Gold Ashanti in Switzerland and in New York. It was not the BBC that helped with Lumley and Nepal so much, but her court action and the British legal system. The British judges were not influenced by the BBC, but the law. The BBC simply reported on events.

Rankins pictures have indeed had impact. If people are “more aware” of one body of work than another in London or New York or Washington is actually irrelevant, we are trying to achieve the same end and his and the approach of Oxfam – yet again is very similar to our own. Maybe you did not read the post above but the work has been exhibited at the US Senate, The UN in New York, the UN in Geneva, it will be exhibited inside the houses of parliament in May. We have exhibited at 22 venues across the US and Europe but collectively around policy debates – therefore targeted. The book we produced I do not view as a photo book as such but a policy document, small enough to sit happily on the desks on politicians and red enough to be seen on said desk and indeed it as been sent to over 600 of the desks in Washington, London, New York and Brussels.

Your link is a good one, but you mention it was a different point of view. They have exactly the same view as I do. As I mentioned in my earlier posts, I do not want people to close down mines or stop buying gold or electrical products, I simply want people and governments to be more aware of where they come from and make decisions about purchases based on that knowledge. Also, I want Government funding to be linked to military behavior and political will.

The only thing I would debate with her is the causal effect. What finances the continuation of this conflict? Minerals. There is certainly data on that. Plenty of it. Two UN reports in fact. This conflict creates insecurity in the region and lack of control and lack of law and therefore impunity for crimes committed.

Impunity is a dangerous thing. It means soldiers feel they can get away with pillage and rape and murder. The pictures above are a testament to that, see the first picture? Those 3 lines of men working in the mine? They are all soldiers. In the village next to this mine I interviewed more than 100 women, 90% of them had been raped. There was no law in this village, just military who quite literally got away with rape and murder.

I asked also if rape was a problem before the soldiers came and they said yes it was, but the perpetrators were normally caught, tried by the village leaders, had to pay compensation or marry the woman they had raped. I asked how often this happened and they said maybe twice a year, in percentage terms, less that 5%.

In DRC Rape is also being used as a weapon to destroy society. As a deliberate policy. Women are the corner stone of any village, they do the work, they do the cooking, they provide the children. Men do very little. When a women is raped she is normally thrown out of her home and also feels she must leave the village. If the whole village female population is raped they destroy the infrastructure of that village, therefore destroying the society of their enemies.

According to CARE International, the ongoing conflict in DRC has created one of the most appalling wars on women in recent history. “Rape has become a tool of war, spreading HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases,” the organizations says on its website. “Rape is used to destroy families and traumatize the women who are attacked, and their children who are often witness to this violence or are attacked themselves.” Some women, decide to speak out about what happened to them. Lumo Furaha is one of them. Her testimony, which can be found on the UN’s website, leaves nothing to the imagination. “…. Over 50 armed men took me and another woman to the bush where they raped us over and over again,” she is quoted. ” After, they pulled us like goats to the main road where they left us abandoned. Luckily, we were found by some men and eventually I was taken to the Goma hospital where I have had nine surgeries, but yet to be fixed. Now, despite not having recovered I am hoping for a brighter future. I hope telling my story will help give me that brighter future.”

In 2006, total worldwide tin mine production was 321,000 tons. Approx 15,500 tons of that came from Congo or about 5% of global production. Tin prices reached around $14,000 per ton that equates to $217 million a year. Those are the numbers fueling this conflict. Now whilst Rwanda will take some of that, suppliers will take some, transport will take some. A significant %age will be passed down to make sure the mines are secured so mining can continue. That means weapons. That means insecurity and impunity, that means war, pillage and rape.

So it is reasonable to assume that whilst DRC is not the largest producer of tin, it is significant and some of that Congolese tin ends up in solder. In 2008, the categories of tin global use were solder (52%), tinplate (16%), chemicals (13%), brass and bronze (5.5%), glass (2%), and variety of other applications (11%). Solder is only used in electrical products. So again not outrageous to say Congolese tin is in our electrical products.

If there were no minerals in this region there would be no long term funding for the conflict. If there was no funding then there would be no weapons, no weapons, no war.

Thanks for your answer although I slightly disagree with your ideas about advocacy.

Programmes like Panorama and File on Four in the UK consistently have effects on policy. Mike Thompson from the BBC won the Amnesty International award for media for his reporting on The Congo, heard by seven million people, amongst them the majority of the British cabinet. The UK Foreign Office invests over two hundred million pounds in the BBC World Service partly because it is so influential amongst diplomats.

When people, when the public care about issues governments feel pressure to change. Most recently Joanna Lumley has had the law on changed on allowing Ghurka soldiers to settle in this country, almost certainly because of the exposure the case received on the BBC. Then there’s events like Live Aid, prompted by the work of the African photograper Mohamed Amin. The list goes on and on. It’s why many governments try to cripple the mass media, because public opinion is what they fear most.

I also think its a shame that more people are aware of Rankin’s pictures for Oxfam from the Congo than your own. Oxfam are of the belief that you need to lobby hard both politicians and the public, which is why Rankin’s images (taken in a day) were printed up large and exhibited in front of parliament (and on the BBC website and Today programme). The work lacks the depth or commitment of your own, but for impact it was so successful I’m told by the head of media they hope to repeat the work.

That is not to dare to suggest what you should or shouldn’t do with your work, its just that I’m always surprised by the photographers (usually in art circles) who don’t feel it’s important as wide as audience as possible experiences their work. As a programme maker I think we honor people, their struggles and hardships, when we bring their stories to as wide an audience as possible.

I also would encourage people to seek out a balanced viewpoint of some of the more extreme claims by well intentioned organizations like the ENOUGH project that you are involved with. They claim in relation to The Congo ‘rape and murder are funded by cell phones’. Its a fantastic way to grab the headlines but as yet there’s no data showing that the mineral trade is the primary cause of violence in Eastern Congo.

In South Africa in a survey 25% of men admitted to having a raped a woman. In Ethiopia where I ran a project centred around sexual health the issue of sexual violence against women was overwhelming. Its a cultural issue in some parts of Africa and many parts of the world, but to suggest emphatically its linked to the use of my mobile phone is crude. It’s also an excuse to shift more trade out of Africa which is just another was of screwing people that as Ian points out we’ve already screwed.

For a different point of view on all of this people can read the following article. http://texasinafrica.blogspot.com/2009/12/show-me-data.html

Once again congratulations for such unswerving commitment to such an important story, of which the world should be ashamed.