Heart of Darkness indeed ....

I hear you groan loudly at the cliche ... i know i know ... pretty much as bad as "out of africa" ..... but truly this piece from the Guardian today makes you realise why things haven't changed that much in Congo since Joseph Conrad ....

The IRC apparently have estimated that an extra 45,000 people are continuing to die each month in the country .... repeat - an extra - so that's over and above whatever horrendous death rate would be expected in a central african country .... and that's despite the civil war having supposedly ended in 2002 .... horrifically pretty much half of those deaths are children .... in a country where one in 5 children doesn't make it to their 5th birthday ....

I was in Goma in June (photos from the trip) ... and it was truly the most scary place i'd ever been .... just minutes across the border from Rwanda - and bang - the danger was palpable .... as though anything and everything nasty could happen and no one would ever know about it or find you afterwards ..... and of course - the poverty was devastating and universal ..... resulting in the most pronounced survival instinct i'd ever seen (by which i mean a general MO to fleece anyone and everyone especially if they look a bleeding heart NGO-type liberal ... which the Congolese seem to be able to sniff out in seconds with expertise ... i clearly stood no chance at all) ....

So it's no surprise that most of these additional deaths are entirely preventable .... needless deaths related to pregnancy or early childhood problems, simple infections and wily old foes such as malaria ..... nothing for which there isn't cure or a remedy .... and which according to development people like Jeff Sachs could be reversed for say the cost of a month's war effort in iraq .... call me a a starry-eyed dreamer ... but just imagine if things like this were raised in some of the democratic debates instead of bill clinton's dancing abilities ..... that would be real change ....