Subj : Compiling text files
To   : MRO
From : Boondock
Date : Tue Jun 08 2021 04:35 am

 Re: Compiling text files
 By: MRO to Boondock on Mon Jun 07 2021 22:24:56

MR> this shit reads like one of those nigerian prince emails.
MR> tell him to get his shit together.
MR> this is stupid.

It's a fked up place. When wrote "The Heart of Darkness" this is literally where he was writing about. Literally and figuratively.

I deployed there in 2013/14 as Combat Demolitions Team Leader as part of the UN Force Intervention Brigade. Some of the things we saw will live with me till the day I die. The casual brutality and lack of any consideration for the santity of life is breathtaking. I personally witnessed bunches of stuff, but one image that will live with me is that of a local strongman hacking open a young woman (15 or 16 yo) and plucking the unborn child out of her womb and throwing it into the river. Simply on a whim and as an intimidation tactic.
I saw a father kill his own child to try to claim $100 compensation from the UN. This is nothing. Business as usual. In fact, this particular guy we suspet is one of the holdovers from the Rwandan Genocide (Go watch Hotel Rwanda for a bit of the horror that was) who fled across the border in the aftermath of the Hutu/Tutsi conflict and set himself up as a warlord ^h^h^h local chief. He's screwing with us. We know it and he KNOWS we know it. This was both a "gotcha" type situation and a neccesary evil to gain a foorhold in this area in order to address some of the issues there with IDPs and Landmines etc.
That being said, the issue is a real one. I've seen the suggestions of plain text etc. Part of the issue is to make it non trivial to just change what the documents say so they can be passed off as bad information coming from the foreigners. This is a complex, multifaceted initiative and a truly fraught situation. Nothing is simple and nothing is easy.
I don't know if it pinged on your radar, but Mount Niragongu (sp?) has just erupted again for the second time since 2009 about a week back. The lava was flowing within a couple of hunderd meters of his house when the guys were there...


JD
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BoonDock
aka John Dovey



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