... it is our responsibility to understand how the US acts on its foreign policy just as we need to do with its domestic policy. That's why the theme of the conference this year is STOP THE WARS at HOME and ABROAD! Today's topic is the Crisis in the Congo. Excerpt from Friends of the Congo's Congo Primer Questions and Answers: Congo Conflict What is the source of the conflict in the Congo? The source of the conflict in the Congo is the scramble to control Congo’s vast natural wealth of gold, diamonds, coltan, copper, cobalt, uranium, tin and many other precious and strategic minerals. Nobel Laureate Wangari Mathaai says “these wars when you look at them, they are all about resources and who is going to control them.” Is this an ethnic conflict between so-called Hutus and Tutsis? No. It is a resource war. Ethnicity is being used as a pretext to access and control Congo’s natural resources. Former Chief of the UNHCR famously warned in an interview he gave to ...