Congolese M23 rebel fighters detain a man they suspect to be an FDLR rebel returning from an incursion into Rwanda, north of Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo, on Nov. 27, 2012. The 20-year conflict in Eastern Congo can feel like an alphabet soup of armed groups. An international team of diplomats is trying to stop the violence, one militia at a time.
In June last year, soon after Secretary of State John Kerry named his old Senate colleague Russ Feingold as the first American special envoy to the Great Lake, one of Feingold’s former constituents approached him with a welcome smile, and a puzzled look. Feingold had, after all, spent 19 years as a senator in the American Great Lakes. “The is terrific,” the man said to Feingold, the former senator recently recalled. “What are you going to be doing, checking water levels?” […FULL STORY…]