In response to by Joseph Yav Katshung: I have been reading with great alarm for years about the massacres and genocide going on in the Congo (Zaire). Around 2003 I was outraged by the massacres of the Hema and Lendu tribes in Ituri province that killed 50,000 people and wrote poetry to protest it. The occasional articles about Congo in the New York Sun indicated that the information was heavily censored by the regime and the full extent of the atrocities wasn't known.

Recently I have read more in detail about the genocide in the Congo. The more I learn, the more alarmed I become. It seems that the primary driver of the genocide has been the fight over coltan and casserite mines which are used to produce cell phones and gold mines. In addition the other problem has been Congo's refusal to disarm the Hutu genocidal killers from Rwanda. Perhaps the most alarming thing I learned is that the leaders of the Hutu killers are being politically sheltered with asylum protection in Belgium, the U.S., France, and Germany. I sent letters to my friends asking them to support legislation in the U.S. Congress which would try to certify that coltan and casserite from the Congo is not being mined by any of the combatant parties.

I have been reading your articles and have been deeply moved by them. I read your article marking the 14th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide that touched and saddened me. I admire your efforts to support legal mechanisms both international as well as congo national to prosecute the killers and ensure justice for the victims. It seems obvious that the West is as indifferent to the genocide in Congo and Darfur as it was to the genocide in Rwanda. Tragically there is no political will at all for genuine action to stop genocide anywhere in Africa on the part of either Western or African leaders.

I am looking for the following information to continue my research and action on behalf of the Congo:

1. ethnic composition of North and South Kivu provinces before 1998 and after the recent war / genocide

2. books explaining the pre-colonial history of the Kongo Kingdom and other tribal groups that previously ruled in Congo such as Luba

3. ethnic composition of the victims of ongoing genocide in North and South Kivu provinces of Congo - including whether particular groups have suffered proportionately more deaths due to massacres as opposed to starvation and disease

4. your opinion on the efficacy of the U.S. trying to ensure that coltan and casserite in the Congo isn't produced by warlords