(PHOTO: France's First Lady Valérie Trierweiler, center, and French Delegate Minister to Francophony Yamina Benguigui, with one victim of sexual and gender-based violence at Panzi Hospital, Bukavu, July 8, 2013.)
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Dr. Denis Mukwege, who's been profiled more than once on this blog and who is partially blocked in the photo above by Valérie Trierweiler, came up Monday with a finely-spun witticism when he called the French First Lady "notre Première Dame de cœur."
The problem is that "dame de cœur" is French for "queen of hearts" and if you translate Dr. Mukwege's bon mot literally, you'd completely lose the nice subtlety of the whole thing in the translation.
On the other hand, by adapting it to English as "our First Lady of hearts" as I did in the title of the post above might amount to nonsense!
Anyway, we got the gist of Dr. Mukwege's wittiness--and it's best left as is: in French!
Be that as it may, the high profile visit in the Congo by these two powerful women who've made Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) in the DRC their crusade was a morale booster for the Congolese who can't wrap their head around (1) the continued occupation of a chunk of the DRC territory by M23 after the deployment of MONUSCO Intervention Brigade, and (2) the shifting narratives by successive UN Groups of Experts on Rwanda and Uganda's responsibility in the destabilization of the Congo.
By the way, the two women left two tons of medications at Panzi Hospital and Benguigui awarded the prestigious Légion d'honneur to Dr. Mukwege on behalf of French President François Hollande.
Benguigui told SGBV victims at Panzi hospital:
"At this time when your bodies are considered by some as battlefields, it is humbly that on behalf of the French Republic and of the Head of State François Hollande I stand before you to voice the solidarity and the support of the French people."
Adding:
"Treating sequels of violences isn't enough; root causes have to be attacked, namely the war that turns the woman's body into a military object; that's why France had backed Resolution 2098 of the United Nations [...] and won't spare any efforts to have the DRC territorial integrity respected."
Upon her return Wednesday to Kinshasa before flying back home to Paris, Benguigui came out swinging at a presser against the horrible reality that zombie-like "squads of AIDS carriers evinced a will to contaminate several generations of women in eastern DRC."
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PHOTO CREDITS: AFP Via lexpress.fr
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