In what ways did the world community respond to these human rights violations?
The UN did step in but it was way too late to do anything effective and they did more harm than help. The intentions of the UN was to ease the conflict and help to facilitate the end of the war but instead they caused more tension. The UN ended up taking the wrong approach in trying to solve the problem of the Congo. They tried to keep the peace and reach out with humanitarian efforts towards the people of the afflicted countries. Although those are the right things to do, they did nothing to help stop the progression of the wars and Congo fell into a much larger crisis. The UN helped kept the diplomatic route open for settling the dispute between the countries but it did not work as the fighting continued.
Why did the world ignore these problems?
There is no doubt that the Congo Wars are horrific events but very few people in the United States and Europe know about them. Why? Because western reporters didn't care enough to report on something that was so culturally different from themselves. The mass rapes and murders that took place during this war will never show up in any textbooks because in the minds of reporters and writers there are events much more significant to spend their time writing about. In our textbooks there is no shortage of information about Europe’s wars and other affairs that concern the United States but you will rarely find anything about Africa unless it's about the European colonization of it. There was a lack of coverage of the events of these wars as they unfolded so there was minimal help provided by Europe and the United States. If this had been occurring in Europe the United States would have no problem interjecting and sending help and vice versa. But Africa has too many problems to even bother fixing any of them, right? Wrong. There were so many things these superpowers could've done to facilitate this war and make it less devastating to all the countries involved. The world ignored this problems because it didn't seem relevant to the rest of the world. There are no trading relationships and nothing to gain from helping the Congo. So why do it? Help a country out of the goodness of your heart and because it's the the right thing to do? No, there has to be some sort of personal gain and the Congo has no personal gain to offer anyone that would be willing to help them. The resources the country has are what the war is being fought over and there is no monetary payment that the poor nation could provide either.