Jane, You made a link to an Eve Ensler site which led to this link and site:

http://www.v-girls.org/home.php

And it is beautiful what she says here. Utterly Beautiful !!!

“There is no excuse for missing to pay salaries to soldiers in lawless eastern Congo for six months”

Following the deteriorating situation in east Congo, the MJPC called for the Congolese Government to pay the salaries of thousands of soldiers who have not been paid for over six months in east Congo, take swift action to enforce the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) warrant against Bosco Ntaganda and to hold accountable perpetrators of sexual violence against women for their acts.

“Faillng to hold accountable individuals who commit war crimes and crimes against humunity continues to be the leading cause of widespread and systematic sexual violence acts against girls and women in the easten Congo” said Makuba Sekombo, Community Affairs Director of
the Mobilization for Justice and Peace in the DR Congo (MJPC). Mr. Sekombo again criticized the government of Congo for not only the continuing failure to protect women and young girls from sexual violence, but also for “encouraging conditions that create opportunities for sexual violence to occur”. “There is no excuse for missing to pay salaries to soldiers in lawless eastern Congo for six months” said Sekombo.

The MJPC has also renewed its call for the Congolese government to take urgent needed action to end human rights abuses in east Congo, hold perpetrators accountable and ensure reparation for the victims of sexual violence. The MJPC has been urging the Congolese government to compensate the victims of sexual violence in order to also help combat impunity in eastern part of Congo where sexual violence against women and children has been widely used as weapon of war for more than decade.MJPC online petition calling for for help to put pressure on Congolese Government to compensate victims of sexual siolence in Eastern DRC can be signed at http://www.gopetition.com.au/online/26180.html

MJPC is a nonprofit organization dedicated to working to add a voice in the promotion of justice and peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in particular in the East where thousands of innocent civilians, including children and women continue to be victims of massive human rights violations while the armed groups responsible for these crimes remain unpunished.

For more information on MJPC and the activities, visit the web site http://www.mjpcongo.org. E-mail: info@mjpcongo.org or call Makuba Sekombo at 1 408 806 3644.

I have been volunteering for Run for Congo Women since my daughter founded it in Sept. 2005. There are so many dimensions of the Congo crisis that go completely ignored by the press, our governments, & NGOs that it is heartbreaking.

We have a Congolese woman on our Portland RFCW organizing team whose family is in the far NE corner of DR Congo…where an intense crisis has been going on since last fall. The whole area has been overrun, whole villages being burned to he ground — by the Lord’s Resistance Army, sending a hundred thousand of refugees into the town of Dungu. Dungu itself then emptied out (55,000 + refugees left for the bush, leaving 50 people in the town when LRA started attacking around Dungu). My friend’s mother (age 69), spent 4 miserable months in the bush last year, 2 of them with all the family children before returning to Dungu, sick and in utter despair. Today the entire population of Dungu (55,000+30,000 refugees), is hungry…chronically hungry. This is the second season no one was been able to harvest or plant crops in their fields, their source of survival. There is no seed available to even plant an in-town garden.

3 family children had been abducted by the LRA last fall. One was recently “rescued” and returned, but the 12 yr old returned home scarred where he had been cut and had black powder drugs, who knows what drugs, inserted. His personality is completely changed. He was utterly unashamed when telling his mother about what pleasure it gave him to beat people in the head until they were dead. He had been forced to rape…and his mother has young girls she is caring for so she had to send him away to protect them.

But no one wants to cover the story of Dungu. We sit on our hands, while these people suffer a long, slow, inevitable and ignominious death of starvation and disease surrounded by new & constant horrors.

Best
David

Jane, I hear from last night’s back-stage buzz that there might be a London production of “33 Variations.” If so, will you go with it?

Good luck at the Tony’s. I will be routing for you. Your performance was poignant and so memorable.

Good luck.
Louis