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One of the most cruel places to go to nowadays is Eastern Congo. In the former Belgian colony, a very terrible war has been going on for quite some time now. A war which has already costed over five million lives. Every day, children are being killed, women are being raped, and men are being tortured to death. Tomorrow, the European Ministers of Foreign Affairs will gather together in Brussels to discuss this matter, one more time. Belgium, having a historical responsability with this African region, has been pleading for several weeks to send in a European peace-force, driven by the United Nations. Their Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon has been asking the same thing. But both France and the United Kingdom don’t want to engage their troops on this moment. They are being too engaged, too overstreched in Irak and Afghanistan, as they call it.

The United Nations want to strenghten the MONUC-peace-force with at least 3000 soldiers, and are searching these troups in Europe. With a budget of one billion US $, the MONUC force is the largest and most expensive mission in the U.N.’s Department of Peace Keeping Operations. But, the biggest problem is that the majority of these troops do come from the third world. As if the third world has to take care of its own, and the rich countries just don’t care.

It makes me sad when I see these terrible things happening today over there. About twenty years ago, I visited that region, and had an experience that I will never forget in this life. It was in the beginning of our trip, during the very first days, that we managed to go and see the gorillas living in the wild in the Virunga National Park. I remember that it was very difficult to make the reservations, and had it not been for some friends living in that area who helped me, I would never have seen them in their own habitat.

We left very early in the morning, driving through the wonderful morning landscape which made me feel like Sigourney Weaver in the 1988 movie Gorillas in the Mist. After a long drive, and an even longer walk through several hills, up and down, we finally discovered a whole family of these giant creatures. One of the guides had briefed us beforehand to take a low gesture when we were close to these animals.

Not this boy of course. Digital cameras hadn’t been invented yet, so I was standing there upright, carrying my heavy Nikon and shooting one role of film after the other. At maximum two meters away, the leader of the family, the enormous silver back gorilla was sitting on his ass, looking to me and to the guide (who he obviously recognised), as if he wanted to find out what this big white ape with a beard and a camera was doing… Really unforgettable.

Today, twenty years later, it is not only a human tragedy that is going on in that region. These wonderful animals are also in real danger.

So please, dear politicians, stop talking, and take some serious action. This cruelty has to come to an end. After all, you call yourselves civilised. It is time to prove it to the world. Take the action NOW, it is high time!

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The Belgian Minister of Defense, Pieter De Crem, also widely known as “Crembo”, has been in the news over the past couple of weeks. During a visit to the United States earlier this month, obviously with a whole delegation of his department, he visited a bar in New York. He was spotted by a Dutch woman who was working in that bar. According to her, the minister was very drunk, and one of his collaborators told her they had come to New York for a couple of meetings with people from the United Nations. Unfortunately, these meetings had been canceled a couple of days earlier because these U.N.-guys were having other meetings to attend in Geneva, Switserland, but the Belgians had decided to go to New York anyway, because it was so “quite” in Brussels and some of the members of the delegation had never been to the Big Apple before.

So Nathalie Lubbe Bakker, the Dutch lady, wrote about this the next day on her weblog. Somehow, the Belgian press found out, they wrote about it, the department of defense denied the story and called it gossip, collaborators of Crembo called the owner of the bar in New York, and Nathalie Lubbe Bakker was fired the next day she came to work.

Earlier this week, Pieter De Crem was invited to come to the Belgian parliament to tell the members of parliament what had really happened in New York. He used his time in parliament to make a pretty special statement, which has been translated into English by me to the best of my abilities: “I want to use this non-event to point to a dangerous fact of the society we live in today. We are living in a time-era where everybody can post anything he or she wants on a blog, without taking any responsability. This is even worse than gossip.” He then pleaded to the other members of parliament: “Together with you, collegues, I must admit that it is almost impossible to defend ourselves against this. Dear collegues, dear collegues of the parliament, collegues of the government, we are all potential victims. I urge you to think about this.”

I don’t want to talk about the fact that this minister has been drunk in New York. I got drunk in New York once as well. After all, it’s a wonderful city with lots of opportunities to get drunk. But I used MY money to fly to New York, and I paid ALL my expenses myself, with MY money. While I am sure that Crembo - he got that nickname because he’s sending Belgian soldiers to the war which can’t be won in Afghanistan - is making much more money than I am, he uses tax-money to fly all around the world with his collaborators.

I can tell you Mr. Minister, don’t bother to have someone of your department call my boss. I am the boss over here, and I have the right to say or write whatever I want. This phenomenon is commenly known as Freedom of Speech.

It is a real shame that so-called leaders of a country do need to shoot the messenger to cover up their own mistakes.

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