A couple of weeks ago, George Monbiot
wrote that "it's hard to find anyone who gives a damn about the Congo."
The article was about the resumption of a civil war that has claimed about 3.8 million lives so far. Among other things, the war is being fought over control of diamonds and coltan (I wrote a diary about this, if you're wondering what coltan is)
I've decided to start writing an occasional series on events/history/politics/war in the DRC -- by occasional, I mean a couple a month. Mostly I'm doing it because the best way I know to learn about something is to force myself to write about it. Be warned, I am by no means an expert on the politics of the region.
Today's effort will be brief due to my malfunctioning left eye.
Today's Guardian published an article on charity CONCERN's successful involvement in efforts to get a railway service restored between Lubumbashi, Samba and Kindu. (If you don't know where these places are -- I didn't -- here's a map. Samba isn't marked on this map, but further digging reveals that it's approximately 80km South of Kindu). In fact, IRIN reports that the railway line that has been reopened runs some 1500km and passes through Kibombo, Malela, Samba, Kibamba, Lubunda, Kongolo and Kabalo, and a twice-monthly train service has been operating since late June.
The Lubumbashi end of the line connects with Lusaka (the capital of Zambia) and that effectively hooks the reopened railway line into the railway network of southern Africa. (There's another article here that's worth a look.
The railway line had been closed for six years because of the civil war. As a result, families were isolated from each other, trade was infinitely more difficult, it was harder to get medical care in the cut-off areas, fewer people got educated, more people were severely malnourished -- lots and lots of unpleasant stuff.
According to the Guardian article, reopening the line has had a broad range of effects.
The prices of staples like maize have increased as producers now have access to the Kindu and Lubumbashi markets. This is very good news for producers and bad news for non-producers. Nevertheless, substantially less people are requiring supplemental food (i.e. the number of people suffering severe malnutrition is likely dropping)
Prices for items like salt, soap, medicine and cotton have dropped.
More kids are going to school and it's easier to get books and learning materials.
There's a trade in commodities like palm oil again. There's also more employment because workers are needed to support the railway infrastructure. On the down side, however, there may well be an increase in prostitution.
And there's also less tangible things, like the hope of being reunited with relatives and friends in other cities after six long war-filled years of isolation.
Amartya Sen argues in Development as Freedom that different kinds of freedom are mutually supporting and sustaining. Here I think we see an example of this idea at work. A modest increase in people's freedom of movement has positive flow-on effects for literacy, access to adequate nutrition, medical care and employment. These will likely have positive flow-on effects of their own: for example, there's a pretty well-established correlation between increases in female literacy and decreases in maternal mortality rates.
Not all the effects are positive, but the positive effects also improve the communities' capacity to cope with these.
So here's hoping that the trains keep running. And here's hoping that the resumption of civil war that Monbiot wrote about stops dead in its tracks.