The U.S. Should Lead On Congo

The U.S. Should Lead On Congo. By Cindy McCain
This is about a choice to save lives.
WSJ, May 14, 2009

America is being tested this year in ways we could not have imagined a year ago. Now I bring you another challenge: to continue our national tradition of aiding the world's poor by helping the people of eastern Congo.

A few weeks ago, I visited the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo to see how the United Nations World Food Programme was faring in its attempt to feed more than a million people. I was in this region 15 years ago as genocide tore through neighboring Rwanda and 300,000 refugees flooded across the border. Unfortunately, despite tremendous efforts by the U.N., the situation today is the same as -- or worse than -- in 1994.

This isn't a simple case of drought-induced famine. The eastern Congo's moderate climate, abundant rainfall, rich soil and huge lakes make it a virtual Garden of Eden. But it's also an area where armed militias plunder, rape, terrorize and murder. On occasion, the official army of the Democratic Republic of Congo does the same as its unpaid soldiers try to live off the land. In short, this is a country without the security, infrastructure or resources to deal with its massive problems.

Only the international community and the struggling government of the Democratic Republic of Congo can restore real order to the country. But until then, the United States -- the single largest contributor of food aid to these people -- must make a choice. Will we walk away and let hundreds of thousands die of slow starvation, or will we push our aid package even harder?
Since mid-January, more than 250,000 people have been displaced in areas of North and South Kivu provinces due to fighting between the Congolese rebels and the army. The northeastern corner of the country, near the Sudanese border, is even worse off. There the violent militiamen of the Lord's Resistance Army burn homes, murder civilians and kidnap children to turn them into slaves or child soldiers.

In the northeast region alone, the World Food Programme has launched an emergency operation to feed 154,000 people -- a tall order during the rainy season, when roads become deep, mud-filled trenches and even airstrips are turned into quagmires. Of all the aid organizations on the ground, it is the biggest and most diversified. In addition to providing food, it is the lead agency for logistics, delivering vital goods such as medicines, blankets and agricultural tools on behalf of other aid groups.

The World Food Programme also supports programs to help rehabilitate former child soldiers and their families. It improves school enrollment and attendance by providing food to children in primary schools, especially in areas where displaced people are returning home. And it supplies food to the spurned and abandoned: the thousands of women who have been raped and those with HIV/AIDS.

As the world tries to figure out how to cope with the economic downturn, we Americans are presented with the challenge of giving even more. The price of cornmeal has risen by 35% in the last year, and the World Food Programme faces a 2009 funding shortfall of $77 million for its operations in the eastern Congo.

In 1994, in the city of Goma in eastern Congo, I watched as a Danish nurse attempted to feed a baby who obviously was not going to make it. Tears streamed down her face. I held my composure until I got back to my car and then wept, too. That day, I vowed to do all I can to prevent such needless deaths.

I hope that my country chooses to save lives in the Congo by continuing to support the World Food Programme as it strives to provide more aid to the orphans, the sick, and those torn from their homes.

Mrs. McCain, the wife of Sen. John McCain, sits on the board of the HALO Trust, which removes landmines, and Operation Smile, which treats children with cleft palates.