For more than 20 years an inexplicable Civil War is turning a territory as big as western Europe into hell on earth. Triggered by the Rwandan genocide in 1994, the Congo War, also called the "Third World War", has claimed six million lives. Many observers not only see in it a fight about political predominance in Central Africa, but also one of the most decisive economic battles for the share in the era of globalization. The reason for the continuance of this war are no longer based on ethnic differences rather than raw materials for technology which are essential for the 21st Century. Nowhere else in the world, the superposition of global interests of the great national economies, local power claims, the colonial past and the post-colonial present are more exemplary than in this crises region. Will the future order of the global community be decided here?
Milo Rau's "The Congo Tribunal" examines the causes and backgrounds to this, so far biggest and bloodiest economic war in human history in a unique and stunningly transmedia art project.
For the first time in national history, "The Congo Tribunal" brought together victims, perpetrators, witnesses and analysts of the Congo War in Bukavu/ Eastern Congo and one month later in Berlin for a large, three-day civil tribunal. Presided over by a half-Congolese and half-international panel of experts, „The Congo Tribunal“ created a humanly harrowing, profound analytic tableau. As a reaction to the passivity of the international community to the systematic attacks against the civil population, it was designed to counteract the decades of impunity in the region.
During the tribunal and in the central areas of conflict, remote villages and inaccessible mines, the documentary film “The Congo Tribunal” paints a unveiled portrait exposing this vast economic war. A film about conflict on a global scale, not about winning or losing rather than the value of first world wealth and the question of how long we are willing to participate in this „well-intentioned genocide“.
The testimony of the anonymous witness J leads us straight into the heart of darkness and tells the story of the directly affected. An interactive narration based on true events and testimonies.
Witness J was created in collaboration with the Congolese artist and political illustrator Kayene, and the Game Development Studio Monokel.
The most important testimonies, statements by the international jury (including the Africa correspondent Colette Braeckman, human rights activist Saran Kaba Jones, Snowden lawyer Wolfgang Kaleck, sociologist Saskia Sassen, politician and artist Marc-Antoine Vumilia and the conflict research specialist Harald Welzer), the summing-up of the judge as well as the most important analyses and research reports by Milo Rau.
Published by Verbrecher Verlag.