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Showing posts with label DRC-RWANDA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DRC-RWANDA. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Geraldine Mande,Student Raised in Wartime Congo on the Writing Assignment That Unlocked Her Voice, Changed Her Path
New England
April 27, 2011
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“Na matoki na yo nde oko lia; liblanka kaka
- work hard, suffer hard and be as hard as stone.”
Then a Facing History class on Eli Wiesel’s Night created an opening through which Geraldine found her voice as a student and a writer. She went on to have her essay selected as one of 50 winners from over 50,000 entries in TV host Oprah Winfrey’s national essay contest on Wiesel's memoir.- work hard, suffer hard and be as hard as stone.”
Geraldine spoke at this month's New England benefit dinner about how her Facing History class became an unpredictable catalyst in her life. Her struggle to find words to grasp Wiesel’s experience in the Holocaust death camps led her to open up for the first time in class about her family’s endurance and escape from war-torn Congo.
Her message to the audience: “By supporting Facing History, you are creating waves that can open the hearts and minds of young people around the world.”
Geraldine Mande at the 2011 Facing History and Ourselves New England Spring Benefit
Ladies, and gentlemen, my name is Geraldine Mande, and I’d like to say, “hi.”
The word “hi” reminds me that I am no longer an outsider. When I arrived in America, I spoke French and Linglala. In French you don’t pronounce “H” and in Linglala, “hi” is an expression you use if you’ve been hurt or depending on how you say it, it could mean garlic.
But now, when I say “hi”, I am saying, I am part of this country. I have experienced its joys, and I have shared in its benefits. I am, for example, a junior at Brandeis, one of the most prestigious schools in the country. I am also a proud product of the Facing History program, which, I must tell you, I credit with helping me to fit into this American life, and also with making sense of the world I came from.
You see, I was born 23 years ago in the Congo at a time when my country was being ripped apart by a long and bloody war. My father was then a member of the military, and so my brothers and sisters, my mother and I, were allowed to live with him in a military camp. The camp was guarded and fenced in to keep intruders out. But it was still a tough life. At night we’d have to leave the camp under cover of darkness to fetch water and carry it back. There was little food. But we were the lucky ones. For those who lived outside the camp, it was much worse. Horrible violence and rampant disease claimed millions of lives.
When I was eight years old, my mother took ill. She needed surgery, and she was allowed to go the United States for treatment. We stayed behind and my father took it upon himself to raise us. He refused to fight, telling his superiors that he needed to be with his children, and for a while, they seemed to accept it.
My father warned us not to go beyond the limits of the camp unless we all went together. “If we die, we all die together,” he told us. But there were times when I did venture outside the camp. Sometimes, it was necessary. One of my most vivid memories was when a group of us, young girls all, had gone out to find water. It took us two hours to find even a few drops and as we made our way back, soldiers opened fire, shooting tracer bullets over our heads. The sky was red, and one girl fell to the ground. At first we thought she had been hit. She hadn’t. Terror had just overcome her.
Other times, it was simply my own childishness that led me outside the camp. I remember playing with a boy outside. I didn’t know him well. But such things don’t matter to lonely children. For a few minutes we were happy. And then I remember hearing a shot and watching him fall screaming to the ground, blood pouring from a wound as people rushed to his aid. I ran all the way home terrified. To this day, I don’t know what happened to that boy.
In 2004, the war ended, and so did the authorities’ patience with my father. They threw us out of the camp. I remember walking back to our quarters from school and seeing all the neighborhood children pointing at me. I didn’t know why. And then I saw that everything we owned, little as it was, had been thrown out in front of our home.
We drifted from there to my grandmother’s house, a cramped and dirty place in another city, and then to a camp in Cameroon. At last, word came that we had received permission from the US government to join my mother in Massachusetts.
Arriving in America, I was enrolled in an ESL class at Brookline High School. I felt isolated and torn. My parents were torn, too. They had grown up in a world with very different values. They were very traditional. The secular ways of America frightened them, and made them feel as if they were in danger of losing their children. In America, teenage girls and boys go out and learn about the world. Not in the Congo. For the longest time my parents tried to make me live the life we had left behind. When they realized that I wanted to be part of this world, they threatened to send me back. It was, I knew, an idle threat. There was no one left in Congo to send me back to.
Maybe it was that they finally understood that I was part of this American world, or maybe the daily struggle to earn a living in this new country took all the fight out of them. But eventually we found a kind of peace.
But I had still not found my own peace. That finally came when I was 17. I was in my junior year in high school, taking a Facing History class in which we studied Elie Wiesel’s Night, when my teacher, Ms. Allison Frydman, urged me to write an essay for a contest that Oprah Winfrey was sponsoring. My teacher told me that when she looked at me, she saw potential. I did not.
I believed that I lacked the skills with the English language, that if I wrote, or worse, read my writing out loud, that I would be laughed at. Ridiculed. But my Facing History teacher wouldn’t give up. She took small steps. First she said that everyone in class had to read the book. And being a well-mannered student, I agreed. And then she said that we had to write a one-page paper, and again, I agreed, because I wanted to be a good student. And when she suggested that I expand my paper, again I did as I was told. As simply and as honestly as I could, I compared and contrasted Mr. Wiesel’s experiences in the Holocaust with my own life in the Congo.
Maybe my writing was awkward. And maybe I was embarrassed by it. But looking back, I can see that my story was more important than the words I chose to express it. I remembered how touched I had been reading about how hunger had tormented Mr. Wiesel. I had seen that kind of hunger; I had come close to it myself. There were nights when I couldn’t swallow my own meager rations because there were other children who weren’t getting any food, and I knew I didn't have enough to share.
I didn’t have the words in English to sum up the fear and the horror of that time. Maybe I still don’t. But there are words in Linglala, words that were meant to teach us to survive, but really showed how desperate we had become. “Na matoki na yo nde oko lia; liblanka kaka,” which means, “work hard, suffer hard and be as hard as stone.”
One day, my teacher asked me to read my essay aloud in class. That time, I drew the line. I said no. And she said, “Okay, I will read it for you.” I will never forget the reaction of the other students. They were so supportive and so moved by it. We had shared something. Not long after that, I learned that my essay was one of 50 selected from over 50,000 entries.
I cannot tell you that I can draw a straight line from that award to my acceptance at Brandeis. But I can tell you this: When I finish my studies at Brandeis, I plan to get a graduate degree in International Global Studies and I hope to someday return to the Congo to work with children, especially the girls. My dream is to develop programs that will help them envision a life beyond the lives they’re living now.
I can draw a straight line from that desire right back to that Facing History teacher who hounded, challenged and ultimately inspired me. I have told my story at several events, a panel at the Boston Public Library, again as part of Facing History’s Choosing to Participate program. I know my story moves people. But I can tell it because only Facing History empowered me.
Had I not taken that Facing History class I wouldn’t be the person I am today. Facing History not only impacted me, but hopefully because of Facing History many girls in the Congo will one day see a change in their lives. By supporting Facing History, you are creating waves that can open the hearts and minds of young people around the world.
Thank you.
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Monday, February 28, 2011
Corporations Reaping Millions as Congo Suffers Deadliest Conflict Since World War II
FROM DEMOCRACY NOW
A new mortality report from the International Rescue Committee says that as many as 5.4 million people have died from war-related causes in the Congo since 1998. A staggering 45,000 people continue to die each month, both from the conflict and the related humanitarian crisis. Amidst the deadliest conflict since World War II, hundreds of international corporations have reaped enormous profits from extracting and processing Congolese minerals. We speak to Maurice Carney of Friends of the Congo and Nita Evele of Congo Global Action. [includes rush transcript]
A new mortality report from the International Rescue Committee says that as many as 5.4 million people have died from war-related causes in the Congo since 1998. A staggering 45,000 people continue to die each month, both from the conflict and the related humanitarian crisis. Amidst the deadliest conflict since World War II, hundreds of international corporations have reaped enormous profits from extracting and processing Congolese minerals. We speak to Maurice Carney of Friends of the Congo and Nita Evele of Congo Global Action. [includes rush transcript]
Guests:
AMY GOODMAN: The conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo is often called the “Forgotten War,” even though it’s the deadliest since World War II. A new mortality report from the International Rescue Committee says the death rate in the Congo remains as high today as it was during the brutal war that officially ended in 2003. The mortality survey found as many as 5.4 million people have died from war-related causes in the Congo since 1998. A staggering 45,000 people continue to die each month both from the conflict and the related humanitarian crisis, despite the presence of the largest United Nations peacekeeping force and billions of dollars in international aid. Maurice Carney, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Friends of the Congo, an advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C.
Nita Evele, Co-Chair of Congo Global Action, a coalition of human rights, humanitarian and other organizations advocating for justice in the DRC.
Meanwhile, a US- and European Union-mediated ceasefire deal between the Congolese government and rival rebel factions in the east of the country has threatened to fall apart Tuesday, the deal announced Monday in the war-torn and diamond-rich North Kivu province. But Tutsi rebels from General Laurent Nkunda’s National Council for Defense of the People, or CNDP, refused to accept the ceasefire. They said the government is not doing enough to protect the Tutsi minority in eastern Congo from Rwandan Hutu militias, known as the FDLR, or Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda.
- RENE BANDI: For us, the problem of FDLR is the main problem. If that problem is apart, it’s not integrated in a global solution, I think there will be problems.
AMY GOODMAN: That was a spokesperson for the CNDP led by General Laurent Nkunda, who is wanted by the Congolese government for war crimes. Some reports indicate the talks broke down over whether or not to grant Nkunda amnesty. The representative of the Mai Mai rebel group, a Congolese militia that’s been fighting Nkunda’s forces in eastern Congo, also threatened to pull out of the agreement Tuesday.
- MAI MAI REPRESENTATIVE: We are very concerned, because we are looking for peace and we are ready to do peace, to make peace take place in our region. We are very tired with fighting. So if the CNDP doesn’t accept, doesn’t agree to send the documents, it means he needs to continue fighting against our population. And as we said, we always said and everybody know, we are just defending. We are protecting our population. As long as the CNDP should continue to reject the agreement that we need to sign, it means he needs to continue fighting. And we are ready to protect our population against any attacks, any aggression, which can come from them.
AMY GOODMAN: Over one million civilians have been displaced from the war-ravaged North and South Kivu provinces to escape fighting between government soldiers, Mai Mai militia and Tutsi rebels loyal to General Nkunda. Deo Bolingo is one of the many displaced people from this region, desperate for the peace deal to be implemented.
- DEO BOLINGO: [translated] All my hopes are in this conference. They should end the war. But if they cannot end it, at this point even old people, children, mothers and youth—the entire population, everyone—should be given a gun, so that everyone should know that they are dying for their lives.
AMY GOODMAN: Although war, poverty, malnutrition and disease continue to stalk the lives of millions of Congolese, the Democratic Republic of Congo also has some of the world’s richest deposits of mineral wealth. As a result, hundreds of international corporations have reaped enormous profits from extracting and processing Congolese minerals.
In June 2007, the Congolese government initiated a process to review sixty-one mining contracts established during the war in the so-called transitional period from 2003 to 2006. The review is complete, but the government has yet to publish the results. When a Congolese newspaper published in November what it claimed were leaked results of the review, several publicly traded mining stocks in the New York, London and Toronto exchanges plummeted. The leaked report indicates that the contracts could be renegotiated or even cancelled.
Maurice Carney is with us in Washington, co-founder and executive director of Friends of the Congo, an advocacy group that seeks to raise awareness about the crisis in the Congo. Nita Evele is a Congolese activist and co-chair of Congo Global Action, a coalition of humanitarian, human rights and other groups advocating for justice in the Congo. Maurice Carney and Nita Evele join us from Washington, D.C.
Can you, Nita, lay out the crisis right now on the ground?
NITA EVELE: OK. Good morning, Amy, and thank you for having us. The crisis on the ground is that the rebel group of Nkunda and the Mai Mai and all those people attack the population in villages. And right now we have almost 800,000 people displaced in the Congo. They were fleeing the conflicts between the army of FRDC—I mean, the Congolese army, who are fighting the militia of General Nkunda. So there’s a big crisis, and people are suffering on camps without food and water. Kids are dying of cholera and other diseases.
AMY GOODMAN: Maurice Carney, the International Rescue Committee calls this the worst conflict since World War II. You’ve written extensively about the involvement of multinational corporations in fueling the unrest. Can you talk about this?
MAURICE CARNEY: Certainly. When you look at the Congo, you have to look at the corporate influence and everything that takes place in the Congo. When you look at the situation as it currently is, people usually talk about rape occurring at horrendous scales. However, there are basically two types of rape taking place in the Congo. One is the rape of the women and children, and the other is the rape of the land, the natural resources. And the Congo has tremendous natural resources. We’re talking about thirty percent of the world’s reserves of cobalt, ten percent of the world’s reserve of copper, eighty percent of the world’s reserve of coltan. And these multinational corporations are profiting at enormous rates while the Congolese people are suffering tremendously.
AMY GOODMAN: Which companies?
MAURICE CARNEY: Well, there are a number of companies. From 2001 to 2003, the United Nations did a report on the illegal exploitation of the natural resources of the Congo. There are a number of American companies. We have Cabot Corporation, for example, out of Boston, Massachusetts, that was named in that report. Cabot—the former CEO of Cabot Corporation is Samuel Bodman, current Secretary of Energy in the Bush administration. We have the OM Group out of Cleveland, Ohio, is another company, American company, named in the report. We also have Freeport-McMoRan, who acquired mining rights from Phelps Dodge out of Phoenix, Arizona, who have been involved in copper exploitation in the Congo. And Global Witness said the copper mines, the Tenke Fungurume mine that Freeport-McMoRan has, represents one of the richest deposits of copper in the world. However, the Congolese government and Congolese people are not benefiting from the contracts that were established and that provided Freeport-McMoRan with those resources.
We have a number of Canadian companies. Almost every Canadian prime minister since Pierre Trudeau has been involved in the mining company in the Congo. We’re talking about Joe Clark, Brian Mulroney, Jean Chretien, all of them profiting from the natural resources of the Congo while the Congolese people suffer. The reports from the Congolese government state that eighty percent of the population live on thirty cents or less a day, while you have billions of dollars going out the back door and into the pockets of mining companies.
AMY GOODMAN: Maurice Carney, you write how the $500 million investment in assuring, well, then-President Kabila’s ascendancy to power “was the beginning of the pay off for the West’s investment. It is for this reason,” you say, “that many Congolese surmised that Kabila was summoned to Washington in October 2007 because he may have strayed from the game plan when he signed a $5 billion deal with China.” Even as he ventured there, you say, to Washington, “he first had to stop in Phoenix, Arizona to visit Tim Snider (recently replaced by Richard Adkerson), CEO of Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold.” Talk more about this relationship. Yes, corporations are there, but what exactly are they doing? Who are they making these deals with?
MAURICE CARNEY: Well, they’re making these deals with the Kabila government. In fact, Kabila was put in place by the Western powers because he was pliant leader. He was going to facilitate access to Congo’s vast geostrategic resources. So that’s the reason why Kabila—the main reason why Kabila was put in power. The International Crisis Group had done a study in 2007 which stated as much, where it documented that Western ambassadors were celebrating that Kabila won the elections, because they now knew that they would have the legitimate access to the natural resources of the Congo.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Maurice Carney, co-founder and executive director of Friends of the Congo, and Nita Evele, co-chair of Congo Global Action. Nita, how aware are people on the ground of these large multinational corporations and their relationship to what’s happening?
NITA EVELE: Oh, the country knows about all that. We see, since Kabila is in power, all the multinationals are there thriving. The Congolese people know about all the contract-reviewing commission. We had one in 2006 by Lutundula, who never had been publicized to the population, but it was leaked to the internet, and everybody saw how all those companies made a deal with Kabila to plunder the country. They sold MIBA, for example—MIBA is the diamond company in the Kasai—for only $14 million, while the company was making a hundred times more than that. So the country knows about what’s going on.
And usually, the people in the Congo used to do diamond—like an artisanal miners, but since those company bought all these lands, they cannot mine those lands anymore. Some villages were sold to the Russians, for example, and the people were kicked out of their land. So it’s a big mess, big, big mess. And people know about that. There are rivers who were sold to multinational company, and people cannot go take—have water to drink. So it’s something that people know about, and people are talking about it. And everybody know how those companies are benefiting and Kabila’s people are benefiting, and the country and the population are getting poorer and poorer every single day.
AMY GOODMAN: Maurice Carney, the role of the international financial institutions, like the World Bank?
MAURICE CARNEY: Yes, there’s really four entities that are involved in keeping the Congo dependent, and one of those entities are international financial institutions, multinational institutions, such as the IMF and the World Bank. In fact, Antonio Guterres had given an interview earlier in January to the Financial Times where he stated that the International Monetary Fund had set up financial rules that pretty much restrict the Congolese government. At least they prevented the Congolese government from having the necessary resources to pay its soldiers. And as a result of the government not having the resources to pay its soldiers, the soldiers then feast on the population through—by stealing, by raping. So you see how the constriction that’s put on the government by the international financial institutions feed the violence that is there in the Congo.
In addition to that, you have the World Bank, for example, which went into the Congo much in the fashion as Naomi Klein describes in her disaster capitalism: they went in after the conflict in 2002, established the mining laws, and the mining laws provided the legal framework for the multinational corporations to come in and establish contracts with the government. Now, even though the mining laws were in place and they required transparency and adherence to the OECD laws, the mining companies came in, and the contracts were opaque. They weren’t transparent. And World Bank studies clearly document this, but they have refused to publish those studies which demonstrate how the mining contracts that’s been established by multinational corporations are actually odious contracts and absolutely do not serve the interests of the Congolese people, but serve the interest of investors from the West.
AMY GOODMAN: Maurice Carney, can you talk about the foreign fighters? It’s often described as a civil war, and yet the fighters from Uganda and Rwanda, what role do they play?
MAURICE CARNEY: Right, a “civil war” is a misnomer. Congo has been invaded twice, first in 1996 primarily by Rwanda and Uganda, when they installed Kabila in power, and they did this with the backing of the United States. They could not have invaded the Congo without the backing of the United States, as Cynthia McKinney documented in her congressional hearing in 2001. Then, when Kabila did not serve the interests of the Rwandans and the Ugandans and the US, then he was gotten rid of. He was assassinated on January 16, 2001.
The Rwandans and Ugandans then invaded the Congo a second time in 1998. And it was this second invasion that the study from the IRC—it has been documented—where 5.4 million Congolese have died. Fifty percent of those Congolese are less than five years old. And the main cause of death is not so much of violent conflict, but from treatable diseases such as diarrhea and pneumonia, all diseases that can be treated. So you have basically Rwanda and Uganda playing a destructive role in the Congo.
When they established peace deals to get—to be removed from the Congo, they left proxy forces in the Congo who were controlling areas that were endowed with gold and tin and diamonds. So even though the Rwandans and Ugandans backed out, and even though they profited tremendously while the were in the Congo with their own forces, they left proxy forces in the Congo. And this started in the Clinton administration and extended into the Bush administration. And if you recall, Amy, during this time, they were saying that Kagame of Rwanda—
AMY GOODMAN: We have ten seconds, Maurice.
MAURICE CARNEY: OK. Kagame of Rwanda, Museveni of Uganda were the future leaders of Africa, and one thing they all had in common is that they’ve invaded other African countries.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to leave it there right now, but we will come back, because this is a critical discussion, the worst conflict since World War II. Maurice Carney, co-founder and executive director of Friends of the Congo, and Nita Evele, co-chair of Congo Global Action
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Congo: Six killed in 'coup bid' against Kabila
Mr Kabila was not in his residence at the time of the attack
BBC: Six people have been killed in an attack on a residence of the president of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
An "unidentified group of armed men" attacked the residence of President Joseph Kabila in the capital, Kinshasa, a government spokesman said, describing the raid as an attempted coup.Mr Kabila's guards killed six of the men, the spokesman said.
Joseph Kabila took power in 2001 after his father, President Laurent Kabila, was assassinated.
He was later elected in his own right.
Plagued by violence In 1998, DR Congo was plunged into a war in which more than five million people died - the deadliest conflict since World War II.
The conflict formally came to an end through a peace deal in 2003, but the east of the country is still plagued by army and militia violence.
"We have witnessed a coup attempt," said Information Minister Lambert Mende, according to Reuters news agency.
"A group of heavily armed people attacked the presidential palace. They were stopped at the first roadblock."
President Kabila was not in the building at the time of the attack at 1330 local time (1230GMT), Mr Mende said.
In addition to the six men killed, several others were detained, he added.
On 15 January, parliament backed a proposal by Mr Kabila to reduce presidential elections from two rounds to one.
The change means the winner can claim victory with less than 50% of the vote.
Presidential and parliamentary elections are scheduled to take place in November 2011.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
UK aid to benefit Rwanda which is accused of acts of genocide in Democratic Republic of Congo
Image via Wikipedia Kagame and Brown |
| The Writer:Nzeimana Ambroise |
Let’s forget the UN/ Gersony report of October 1994 or the Garreton report of 1997 which, though covered up and therefore not followed up, documented killing of thousands of Hutu population the first in Rwanda and the second in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). But the UN report published on October 1st, thanks to its leaking by the newspaper Le Monde a month earlier, accuses openly the Rwandan Patriotic Army and its AFDL partner in war of having committed acts of genocide in DRC. Since October 14th, 2010, the President of Rwanda has imprisoned Ms Victoire Ingabire, leader of FDU-Inkingi, an important opposition personality on Rwandan ring-fenced political space, and this occurring without any clear condemnation from the international community.
On the Mo Ibrahim Index Rwanda scores 47.2% and stands at no. 31 out 53 African countries. For a reminder, this index measures annually four parameters across the continent. These are safety and rule of law, participation and human rights, sustainable economic opportunity, human development. Overall the country has moved backwards by 2.2% from previous period of 2007/8. There has as well been a significant decrease in safety and rule of law by 8.4%, while in terms of sustainable economic opportunity, a 2.2% increase had been registered.
In its press freedom index, Reporters without Borders indicates that Rwanda was ranked 157th out of 175 countries in the 2009 listing. The country was featured among the four lowest African scorers of the record. Eritrea, Somalia and Equatorial Guinea were the only countries below Rwanda in the ranking. Transparency International has on the other hand referred to Rwanda as the least corrupt country in East Africa. But it is arguable because, according to the country’s critic, there may not be official corruption following the fact that Rwanda is a police state. As Transparency itself points it out, ‘it was unable to produce a comparison of how Rwanda’s institutions fared because reports of bribery were so low – and no Rwandan organization was included in the regional comparison.’ For example, the South African newspaper Sunday Times uncovered in February 2010 the case of two luxury jets worth around one hundred millions of US $ belonging to the Rwandan president, and this may only be the tip of the iceberg.
At a time of drastic measures that the British government is currently taking to deal with its massive deficit, very few departments have seen their budgets increased. International development is among the handful winners. Apparently the department budget is ring-fenced, but even there fundamental changes may be planned in its spending. Anne McElvoy, writing in The Evening Standard, seems to be sceptical about supposed changes. ‘Ring-fencing of spending of international development, (which) means that less rigour will be applied there than in other areas – and in a department whose inefficiencies are legendary in Whitehall,’ she argues.
It has been announced that aid budget will mainly focus on ‘fragile states’ such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen and other countries deemed important for Britain’s national security, with less for prosperous nations such as India and China. The aim is seemingly to tackle underlying problems, such as poor education, governance and healthcare, which are exploited by militants seeking recruits for terrorism acts. However, such prioritisation supposes that hopefully, there won’t be any recruit from Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi or Democratic Republic of Congo who will come to London to blow himself with other members of the public, since some of these countries could be as well called fragile states, when considered the total absence of political space for dissent voices.
Tim Whewell’s film, ‘What is the true price of Rwanda’s recovery’, which was shown on Newsnight in March 2010 on BBC Two, explained that whoever between Labour and Tories British political parties would’ve won the general elections, support to Paul Kagame’s regime would’ve remained. As for Britain’s role in supporting Rwanda, Mr. Cannon, British ambassador in Kigali, says that: ‘Although there are aspects of the country’s human rights that are not perfect – certainly we wouldn’t be here or doing what we’re doing if we didn’t think there was a commitment on the part of the government to the values we share.’ He points in particular to a shared commitment to pro-poor policies – thanks in part to British aid, the proportion of poor Rwandans fell from 70% of the population to 57% between 1994 and 2006. He however forgets to mention that in 1990, before the guerrilla war led by Paul Kagame, that proportion of poor Rwandans was according PNUD only 47%.
The particular treatment of Rwanda responds to a number of specific interests the country represents or defends for Britain in the Great Lakes region. French was replaced by English as national language, without any public consultation, despite the consequences of such decision on thousands of Rwandan public servants who had been educated in French for several generations. The Rwandan president was rewarded admission of his country to the Commonwealth though Rwanda and countries of the ex-British empire didn’t share any common heritage. Such admission maybe could’ve been tolerable at least if Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative and other human rights organisations hadn’t vigorously denounced the level of human rights abuse by the Rwandan president.
But this was without considering current cuts that the coalition government Lib. Dem/ Conservatives would impose to the British nation or the exposure to compelling evidence of Paul Kagame’s crimes to the public which had turned a blind eye on his excesses because of his country’s recent history. Despite an increasing and unprecedented record of abuses of human rights particularly against Rwandan politicians from the opposition, Kigali doesn’t look worried to loose the support of Britain, this even after the publication of the UN report on crimes committed in DRC. The fact of pointing an accusatory finger to Paul Kagame seems to have rather radicalised his attitude towards his opponent politicians: Victoire Ingabire from the FDU-Inkingi and Me Bernard Ntaganda from Socialist Party Imberakuri are paying with tortures and imprisonment for the frustration of the Rwandan president. But this may not apply for Andre Rwisereka, vice-president of the Green Democratic Party of Rwanda who was apparently assassinated by the regime’s handlers in July 2010 for political reasons. On this particular case, Kigali has refused an independent inquiry into the death of this politician, but instead imprisoned probably innocent people to calm pressing calls for justice.
At the Conservative conference held a few months ago, the issue of human rights in Rwanda was apparently raised but couldn’t find any ear ready to listen to the point of concern. Those who tried to highlight the question found it played down because Rwanda is seen as a flagship for Britain in the matters of aid to development. But what the whole picture of support to Paul Kagame doesn’t tell is how that provided financial support enables Rwandan authorities to get a hand on Eastern Congo mineral resources with the complicity of private companies based in Western countries, or to oppress and legally discriminate among its citizens, and spread internationally its propaganda of being a success story in the midst of an African continent marred with conflicts and all sorts of negative clichés. Another hidden reality was uncovered by UN experts on the consequence of aid in the Great Lakes region. They found that, for example in the case of Uganda, ‘(it) gave the Government room to spend more on security matters while other sectors, such as education, health and governance, are being taken care of by the bilateral and multilateral aid,’ asserts the UN report of 2001 on ‘Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.’
In the light of current cuts, would British taxpayers continue to see their money which would have helped them or else to deal with ongoing tough times be spent as aid to development of dictatorial and oppressive governments such Rwanda, without asking pertinent questions to their leaders? I don’t think they would knowingly. As international aid budget is scheduled to increase during the current parliament, British public should be more attuned to asking from their ministers a minimum of criteria of human rights and press freedom, and democratic credentials, beneficiaries of British aid should comply with rigorously.
Friday, November 19, 2010
Who's actually defending Victoire Ingabire?
From Radio Netherland World
The defence team of Victoire Ingabire, leader of the opposition party United Democratic Forces (UDF), is getting ready for trial. Ingabire is accused of collaborating with a terrorist organisation, dividing the people of Rwanda and denying the 1994 genocide. But who is actually defending her? Three lawyers are struggling to find their way in this "sensitive and very unclear" case.
Robert Alun Jones
A top British laywer, Jones represented the Spanish government in the famous case against former Chilean dictator Genaral Augusto Pinochet (1998-2000).
The barrister has past experience with Rwanda. He successfully defended Vincent Brown, a Rwandan doctor arrested in London on suspicion of murder during the Rwandan Genocide in 1994. Kigali demanded his extradition. Jones, who had been living for years in the UK, was acquitted in 2009.
Jones will defend Ingabire, not in his own country but in Rwanda.
Iain Edwards
Edwards, a British lawyer with ten years of experience behind him, is specialised in criminal law and human rights. He is fluent in French and also has a particular interest in immigration issues with clients facing the risk of deportation.
Edwards has also been working for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania. His clients are charged with genocide and crimes against humanity arising from the Rwandan 1994 genocide.
“We hope that it will be a fair trial. But it’s far too early to say”, Edwards told RNW on the phone with regards to Ingabire’s case. He sees it as being sensitive and very unclear.
“We have no idea what the schedule looks like, but it seems that the prosecutor has a limited amount of evidence. Ingabire hasn’t even been charged yet. We think that the prosecutor is still trying to find evidence.”
Edwards met with Ingabire in Kigali this year, when he dealt with the imprisonment of her American lawyer Peter Erlinder.
Gatera Gashabana
By proximity, this Rwandan lawyer is probably the most engaged one in Ingabire’s case. He visits her regularly in her cell.
According to Gatera, Ingabire’s imprisonment is "unlawful". Until now, he feels that the judge has not taken his arguments into consideration, he told RNW.
"The accusation is based on a testimony of a person who declared that he and Ingabire had the intention to create a military organisation. This declaration cannot be taken into consideration because this person is also accused. According to our law, this testimony doesn’t have any value”, Gatera argues.
"Furthermore, there are e-mails in which Victoire has written about the military organisation to fight the power in place in our country. But according to our laws, e-mails don’t have any value in court."
The defence team of Victoire Ingabire, leader of the opposition party United Democratic Forces (UDF), is getting ready for trial. Ingabire is accused of collaborating with a terrorist organisation, dividing the people of Rwanda and denying the 1994 genocide. But who is actually defending her? Three lawyers are struggling to find their way in this "sensitive and very unclear" case.
Robert Alun Jones
A top British laywer, Jones represented the Spanish government in the famous case against former Chilean dictator Genaral Augusto Pinochet (1998-2000).
The barrister has past experience with Rwanda. He successfully defended Vincent Brown, a Rwandan doctor arrested in London on suspicion of murder during the Rwandan Genocide in 1994. Kigali demanded his extradition. Jones, who had been living for years in the UK, was acquitted in 2009.
Jones will defend Ingabire, not in his own country but in Rwanda.
Iain Edwards
Edwards, a British lawyer with ten years of experience behind him, is specialised in criminal law and human rights. He is fluent in French and also has a particular interest in immigration issues with clients facing the risk of deportation.
Edwards has also been working for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania. His clients are charged with genocide and crimes against humanity arising from the Rwandan 1994 genocide.
“We hope that it will be a fair trial. But it’s far too early to say”, Edwards told RNW on the phone with regards to Ingabire’s case. He sees it as being sensitive and very unclear.
“We have no idea what the schedule looks like, but it seems that the prosecutor has a limited amount of evidence. Ingabire hasn’t even been charged yet. We think that the prosecutor is still trying to find evidence.”
Edwards met with Ingabire in Kigali this year, when he dealt with the imprisonment of her American lawyer Peter Erlinder.
Gatera Gashabana
By proximity, this Rwandan lawyer is probably the most engaged one in Ingabire’s case. He visits her regularly in her cell.
According to Gatera, Ingabire’s imprisonment is "unlawful". Until now, he feels that the judge has not taken his arguments into consideration, he told RNW.
"The accusation is based on a testimony of a person who declared that he and Ingabire had the intention to create a military organisation. This declaration cannot be taken into consideration because this person is also accused. According to our law, this testimony doesn’t have any value”, Gatera argues.
"Furthermore, there are e-mails in which Victoire has written about the military organisation to fight the power in place in our country. But according to our laws, e-mails don’t have any value in court."
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Obama’s Congo Moment: Genocide, the U.N. Report and Senate Bill 2125
Source: www.global research.ca
Obama’s Congo Moment: Genocide, the U.N. Report and Senate Bill 2125
The official Oct. 1 release of the U.N. Report on Human Rights Abuses in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 1993-2003
, documenting the Rwandan and Ugandan armies’ massacres of Rwandan Hutu refugees and Congolese Hutus in the Democratic Republic of Congo, should be a defining moment for President Barack Obama. How will the USA’s first African American president respond to the detailed and widely publicized U.N. documentation of genocide in the heart of Africa, committed by the USA’s longstanding military proxies, the armies of Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni?Few Americans realize that the Rwandan and Ugandan armies are armed and trained by the U.S. or that the U.S. military uses both countries as staging grounds, but they may learn about it now.
Few realize either that the sole piece of legislation that President Obama shepherded into law on his own, as a Senator, was S.B. 2125, the Obama Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act of 2006
, in which, in Section 101(3), he quoted USAID:“Given its size, population, and resources, the Congo is an important player in Africa and of long-term interest to the United States.”
Indeed. In 1982, the Congressional Budget Office’s “Cobalt: Policy Options for a Strategic Mineral
” noted that cobalt alloys are critical to the aerospace and weapons industries, that the U.S. has no cobalt worth mining, that 64 percent of the world’s cobalt reserves are in the Katanga Copper Belt running from southeastern Congo into northern Zambia and that control of the region is therefore critical to the U.S. ability to manufacture for war.Foreign powers and corporations’ determination to control Congo’s cobalt and the rest of its dense mineral resources has made the Congo conflict the most lethal since World War II.
Section 101(5) and (6) of Obama’s 2006 Congo legislation reads:
“(5) The most recent war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which erupted in 1998, spawned some of the world’s worst human rights atrocities and drew in six neighboring countries.
“(6) Despite the conclusion of a peace agreement and subsequent withdrawal of foreign forces in 2003, both the real and perceived presence of armed groups hostile to the Governments of Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi continue to serve as a major source of regional instability and an apparent pretext for continued interference in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by its neighbors [Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi].”
What Obama identified as the “real and perceived presence of armed groups hostile to the Governments of Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi” was, most of all, the real and perceived presence of “Hutu militias.” They were indeed the “pretext” for the predominantly Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Army’s massacres of Hutu civilians, Rwandan Hutu refugees and Congolese Hutus, with the help of the Ugandan People’s Defence Force – massacres now documented in the U.N. report leaked to Le Monde on Aug. 26
, then officially released Oct. 1.Since Obama described the militias as “apparent pretext for continued interference” in 2006, we can assume that he understood them as such on his Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, 2009, when Rwandan troops again moved into Congo. On that day, world headlines, alongside those he himself was making, included “Rwandan Troops enter D.R. Congo to hunt Hutu militias
” (Telegraph), “Rwandan troops enter Congo to hunt Hutu rebels” (BBC) and “Rwandan troops enter Kivu to hunt Hutu rebels” (Radio France International).On the same day, the Christian Science Monitor, in “Rwandan Troops enter Democratic Republic of the Congo
,” reproduced the pretext that Obama had identified in S.B. 2125:“Rwandan troops entered the Democratic Republic of Congo on Tuesday to tackle a Rwandan Hutu militia whose leaders are accused of taking part in the 1994 Rwandan genocide before fleeing to Congo.”
Since Obama understood the pretext in 2006, he no doubt understood it that day and no doubt understands it today, as Rwandan and Ugandan troops are rumored, once again, to be moving into Congo, despite international outcry about the U.N. report.
Hutu militias and other “rebel militias” in Congo can no longer serve as the devil, the eternal excuse or, as Obama said, the “apparent pretext for intervention in the Democratic Republic by Congo’s neighbors.” Most of all, they can no longer serve as the devil, the excuse and pretext for interventions by Paul Kagame, the general turned president and so long heroized as Rwanda’s savior, because Kagame’s own army’s massacres of Rwandan and Congolese Hutu civilians has now been documented in the U.N. report.
The leak and now the official release have finally magnified President, then-Senator, Obama’s obscure, still little known revision of the East-Central African story in his 2006 legislation, S.B. 2125, which then became Public Law 109-456.
Obama’s ‘Rwanda moment’?
John Prendergast and David Eggers, the ENOUGH Project’s tireless advocates for U.S. intervention in Sudan, suggested, in a New York Times op-ed that Obama’s “Rwanda moment
,” like Bill Clinton’s in 1994, is now in Sudan, where, they say, Obama has a chance to do what Bill Clinton reputedly failed to do in Rwanda, intervene to stop genocide.But Obama’s Rwanda, and Congo, moment is in Rwanda and Congo now, as the world reviews the U.N. report and Rwandan troops once again advance into Congo.
He doesn’t need to intervene but to stop intervening, by withdrawing the military support, weapons, training, logistics and intelligence for Kagame, support that has so long equaled intervention. If he did so, peace and human rights activists all over the world would stand behind him and the narrative revision that he quietly penned three years ago.
An Obama decision to stop supporting Kagame would go up against the last 30 years of Pentagon intervention in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, but the U.N. Report turns his 2006 narrative revision into an outright reversal – with the weight of the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights and growing international opinion behind it.
And Obama is the commander-in-chief, with absolute executive authority over the U.S. armed forces. Yes, he can, should he choose to.
This article was previously published in Global Research.
Written by Ann Garrison
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