"Don't let the DRC go up in flames"

By Roméo A. Dallaire, Frank Chalk, and Kyle Matthews

Ottawa Citizen
December 13, 2011

"Eat their money, but don't vote for them." - Advice given by some church and civil society leaders to Congo voters.

Former New York Times correspondent Howard French said it best: "Something is wrong in the way we think of Africa." What's wrong, French makes clear, is our expectation that Africa's role is to provide us with "an escalating sense of horror." That was the story from Rwanda in 1994 and during the Second Congo War (1998-2003) from provinces like Ituri and the North and South Kivu provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

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Roméo A. Dallaire and Frank Chalk are The Simons Foundation Peace Leaders.