Coalition to UN Security Council: Address UN Congo Mapping Report and Enforce Justice for Victims

by Frank LeFever on Tuesday, December 14, 2010 at 9:57pm
PRESS RELEASE

Tuesday, December 14, 2010 – This month the US and the UN Security Council must choose: will they hold accountable major perpetrators of continued atrocities in the Congo or collaborate with them to put the blame on a few guilty but minor scapegoats and some innocent people who are guilty only of challenging the major offenders?

 On December 8, several US-Congolese organizations and numerous individuals sent a letter to Congressman David Wu, asking Congress to seek justice for the victims of an ongoing holocaust in the Congo and specifically asking that the long-suppressed UN “Mapping Report” showing complicity of the current government of Rwanda seriously examined and addressed. [1]

Recently, the Dutch legislature and thousands of people in Brussels as well as some officials put Paul Kagame on notice: that he cannot escape the consequences of his acts. [2]

So far, Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda, has been successful in his efforts to bury reports of his atrocities in the Congo without serious examination.  The Security Council agreed not to look further into the Mapping Exercise Report, and a few days ago, added several individuals and a small militia to its list of people or organizations to be sanctioned for use of child soldiers. However implicitly exempted were Uganda and Rwanda from sanctions for this or for any of the other crimes revealed in the Report and related abuses reported by others, which continue to this day.  [3]

As this month's chair of the Security Council, the US has a moral obligation to take the Mapping Exercise Report off the table and deal with its contents seriously.  The US also has a moral obligation to implement the Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act of 2006, sponsored by then-Senator Barack Obama. [4]

The UN Mapping Exercise Report, released only after it had been leaked, makes it clear that the governments of Uganda and Rwanda are implicated in massive atrocities in the Congo continuing long after they invaded the Congo. Yet, Uganda has not been forced to pay the court-mandated financial penalty, and both invaders are given license to continue their incursions on the pretext of hunting down smaller offenders, such as the LRA, FDLR, and various "mai mai".  [5] [6]

The president of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, reacted to the report with threats and with diversions.  He threatened to withdraw “peacekeeping” forces from Sudan if the UN report was not disavowed or modified.

 The unsuitability of Rwanda as an instrument of peace and stability in the Great Lakes region of Africa is augmented by its president's efforts to divert attention from the Mapping Exercise Report by imprisoning political opponents absurdly charged with conspiring to renew genocide in Rwanda. Within days of the October “Mapping Report” release, he re-arrested Victoire Ingabire, who had been arrested for “genocide denial” last spring to prevent her standing as a 2010 presidential candidate challenging his re-election; now, to divert attention from his documented culpability, he jailed her in life-threatening conditions and introduced the more serious charge of conspiring to overthrow his government by force and perpetuate genocide, naming a bizarre set of co-conspirators. [7]

American lawyer Peter Erlinder went to Rwanda last spring to defend Victoire Ingabire, after her first arrest, and he too was arrested and imprisoned under life-threatening conditions that provoked an outcry from US citizens and legislatures, resulting in an official US request for his release on humanitarian grounds.  He is home and safe, but Rwanda demands his return for trial or “dead or alive.” [8]

Bizarrely,  Paul Rusesabagina, the hero of "Hotel Rwanda" (who rescued so many Tutsis who might otherwise have been killed in 1994) has been called a "genocider" conspiring with Victoire to attack Rwanda, overthrow the government and kill Tutsis; he would be in a Rwandan jail if he had not already in sought safety in exile. [9 ] [10]

Some call Victoire Ingabire the Aung San Suu Kyi of Africa or the female Mandela, but she is not just a symbol of resistance to oppression by a dictator; she is a real person, a wife and mother whose husband and children plead for people to intervene and free her from a squalid and dangerous prison in which she has been held (without trial) for two months. [11]

 We join in their plea, seeking justice for courageous individuals wrongly imprisoned as well as for the millions who have died and the millions who continue to suffer in the Congo, and endorse the letter sent to congress on December 8  providing details, additional documentation, and precise steps the US and UN need to take to bring justice, healing, stability, and a better future for a long-abused people.

Contact: Friends of the Congo

Phone: +1-202-584-6512

Email: rwandaelections@gmail.com


REFERENCES:
[1] “Seeking Justice for the Victims: The UN mapping report of October 1, 2010 on the Democratic Republic of the Congo.”  Letter sent to Congressman David Wu on December 8, 2010 by Africa Faith and Justice Network, Friends of the Congo, Neema Corporation, Chicago Congo Coalition, and others.

http://afjn.org/focus-campaigns/promote-peace-d-r-congo/71-policy-objectives/908-seeking-justice-for-the-victims-un-mapping-exercise-report-of-october-1-2010-on-the-democratic-republic-of-the-congo-ngo-letter-to-congressman-david-wu.html

[2 ] “...'The president of Rwanda is a criminal', says Paul Rusesabagina. The famous manager of Hôtel des Mille Collines is one of the demonstrators who are gathered on Albertina square in Brussels... President Kagame didn’t hold his announced speech during the European congress. He left early to Rwanda for more pressing issues. His minister of Foreign Affairs replaces him and thanks Europe for all the support...Ms Mushikwabo says: 'We respect the decision of the Netherlands to stop direct aid for Rwanda. But our relationship with the European Union remains very friendly'...”

http://www.rnw.nl/africa/article/europe-stays-true-rwanda

[3] Agreed 1 December 2010: "...three FDLR leaders and one individual responsible for targeting children in situations of armed conflict, to be added to the list of individuals and entities subject to a worldwide travel ban and asset freeze..." http://ukun.fco.gov.uk/en/news/?view=News&id=286240682

[4] 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."

Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act of 2006 (sponsored by Sen. Barack Obama [D-IL]) http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s109-2125

 [5] INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE REPORTS OF JUDGMENTS,ADVISORY OPINIONS AND ORDERS CASE CONCERNING ARMED ACTIVITIES ON THE TERRITORY OF THE CONGO (DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO v. UGANDA)

 JUDGMENT OF 19 DECEMBER 2005

EXCERPT: "... the Republic of Uganda, by the conduct of its armed forces, which committed acts of killing, torture and other forms of inhumane treatment of the Congolese civilian population, destroyed villages and civilian buildings, failed to distinguish between civilian and military targets and to protect the civilian population in fighting with other combatants, trained child soldiers, incited ethnic conflict and failed to take measures to put an end to such conflict; as well as by its failure, as an occupying Power, to take measures to respect and ensure respect for human rights and international humanitarian law in Ituri district, violated its obligations under international human rights law and international humanitarian law..."

http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/116/10455.pdf

[6]  Oil, African Genocide and the USA's LRA Excuse Dec 6, 2010 ... President Obama seemed either unaware or unconcerned about the UN Mapping Report, released on October 1st, which documents Ugandan President ...

www.blackstarnews.com/news/135/ARTICLE/.../2010-12-06.html

 [7]  Rwandan opposition leader Victoire Ingabire arrested.  “...Rwandan government security operatives surrounding her home in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, had been replaced by police with firearms, and that six of them were visible from inside. Others reported that there were Rwandan troops in her neighborhood and that shops had been ordered to close. ..”

http://sfbayview.com/2010/rwandan-opposition-leader-victoire-ingabire-arrested/

Ingabire trial: Rwanda prosecution fails ‘evidence test’

http://rwandinfo.com/eng/tag/martin-ngoga/

 [8] Kagame wants US law professor brought to Rwanda, 'dead or alive' “According to high-level Rwandan officials at a meeting in Kigali in mid-October, President Kagame ordered that IHLI Director and WMCL law professor Peter Erlinder be brought back to Rwanda “dead or alive.”

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/300669#ixzz17aSQxGSP

[9 ] Rwandan Prosecutor wants to bring “Hotel Rwanda” hero Rusesabagina to justice. "...exiled opposition politician Paul Rusesabagina and jailed Victoire Ingabire have been in constant contact and

fundraising for the FDLR rebels, says the Prosecutor General..."

http://rwandinfo.com/eng/rwandan-prosecutor-wants-to-bring-hotel-rwanda-hero-rusesabagina-to-justice/

Kagame's Rwanda accuses real-life Hotel Rwanda hero of terrorism

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/291869#ixzz17aSBcfLa

[10 ] Kagame regime demands Professor Peter Erlinder return to Kigali to stand trial. "The Kagame regime continues on the offensive in the wake of the “U.N. Mapping Report on Human Rights Abuse in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 1993-2003,” released on Oct. 1, which documents the Rwandan army’s war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocidal massacres of civilian Rwandan Hutu refugees and Congolese Hutus in Congo..."

http://sfbayview.com/2010/kagame-regime-demands-professor-peter-erlinder-return-to-kigali-to-stand-trial/

KPFA News: Kagame wants Peter Erlinder back in Rwanda 'dead or alive'

http://anngarrison.blogspot.com/2010/11/kpfa-news-professor-peter-erlinder-on.html

[11 ] Meet the daughter of Victoire Ingabire "...Even though it is difficult for me, I would let her leave again, because my mother does what she thinks is just. To prevent her from being involved in politics and fighting for a more just Rwanda would be to destroy a part of my mother..."

http://sfbayview.com/2010/meet-the-daughter-of-victoire-ingabir

KPFA Radio interview with Victoire Ingabire's daughter Raissa, December 12, http://anngarrison.blogspot.com/2010/12/kpfa-news-victoire-ingabires-daughter.html

Related articles

• FACTBOX-Key political risks to watch in Rwanda (reuters.com)
• 'Hotel Rwanda' hero implicated in terror case (msnbc.msn.com)
• Rwanda terror charge for Ingabire (bbc.co.uk)

Obama’s Congo Moment: Genocide, the U.N. Report and Senate Bill 2125

Source: www.global research.ca

By Ann Garrison

Obama’s Congo Moment: Genocide, the U.N. Report and Senate Bill 2125

13 November 2010 Comments (0)  Print This Post

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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US lawmakers crack down on Congo mineral trade

Published by AP

WASHINGTON – Congress is cracking down on companies dealing in minerals that fuel violence in Congo.
The legislation requires companies doing business in Congo and neighboring countries to disclose the origin of any minerals they trade in as specifically as possible. The requirement applies to any company listed on a U.S. stock exchange.
The legislation specifies four minerals believed to be funding the conflict, including gold and tin ore. It would give the U.S. secretary of state the ability to expand the list.
The legislation is part of a broad financial regulation bill passed Thursday. President Barack Obama is expected to sign the legislation into law in a matter of days.
U.S. officials and rights groups say armed militias in eastern Congo are forcing villagers to extract the minerals. They say profits are used to purchase weapons and extend the cycle of violence that has ravaged the region for more than a decade.
Democrat Howard Berman of California, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called the legislation "a vital tool for alleviating the pain and suffering experienced by the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

America's Role in Central Africa: AFRICOM, the U.S. Africa Command, Rwanda, the Congo

First Published in Global Research
By Ann Garrison

On July 6, 2010, I spoke with Shanaaz Ebrahim, on Voice of the Cape Drive Time, about Rwanda, eastern Congo, and AFRICOM, the U.S. Africa Command.

I gave particular attention to why I, as an American, feel compelled to study and speak out about this, and to U.S. military industries' dependence on the mineral wealth of southeastern D.R. Congo and northern Zambia to manufacture for war. The world's largest and most densely concentrated cobalt reserves are in the Katanga Copper Belt running from Southeastern D.R. Congo into Zambia.

On September 7, 1980 a Scripps Howard News report, published in the Pittsburgh Press, said:

"The United States has less than half the stockpiled cobalt it would need in wartime.

That's bad news, but the Pentagon has worse. The cobalt on hand isn't pure enough. It would have to be refined for use in its most important military role: as an ingredient in making high-performance jet engines.

The strategic stockpile managers think the nation should have 85 million tons of cobalt squirreled away for an emergency. The nation has 40 million tons.

. . .

There's a similar shortage and quality problem in the U.S. stockpile of titanium, another metal used in aircraft manufacture. There are also shortages of chromium, tantalum, beryllium, and nickel, all of which are expensive and all of which must be imported.

The problem with the cobalt in storage is that it was purchased in the 1950s when purity was not a major factor.

. . .

That was before the design of jet engines so powerful that they allow a fighter like the F-15 to gain speed while flying straight up. The heat generated in the turbine blades of these high-performance engines can only be handled by very pure cobalt."

The world's largest and purest cobalt reserves lie in the Katanga Copper Belt that runs from southeastern Congo into northern Zambia; this has been a key factor shaping U.S. foreign policy and military intervention in East/Central Africa, especially Rwanda and neighboring D.R. Congo since 1980.

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This opinion article was written by an independent writer. The opinions and views expressed herein are those of the author and are not necessarily intended to reflect those of DigitalJournal.com

Ann Garrison is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Ann Garrison

The Son Of Africa Dr. Shaka Ssali

When I was carrying out some academic research on my beautiful continet Africa. I came across an interesting email with a lot of facts about a person who has been of interest to me ever since I was a boy. This is a man whom I personally consider a mentor though we have never met face to face, but his African accent always reminds me home. It reminds me that you can be who you are and yet outdo the excellence and average performance. You can maintain your root and your love for Africa and still find your own place in the elite society. This man I am talking about is Dr. Shaka Ssali. Many people who developed the liking for him when we were still high school students, we continued thinking that he is related to Shaka of South Africa but when I discovered that he is a Ugandan from not far from home. I remembered my history teacher "Le Monsieur Mushakamba" who hailed from Butaro that he told me that the reasons why Zulu people of South Africa refer to the Cape Raven as Gatcha for Gatcha Butelezi is because they originated from Central and East African area.The word Gatcha in Zulu and AGACHA in Kinyarwanda translate the same kind of a bird called a Raven. He assured that might have been named after Shaka of Ishyaka pronounced as Ishaka by the people of Bakiga region. This includes Gisenyi,Ruhengeri,Byumba IN RWANDA and Bufumbira,and Kigezi in UGANDA.

When I read this email from the person who real knows him I learnt alot that I would have otherwise not known. I felt I should republish it so that you too can get a chance to know our African hero a man who sees no boundaries but Africa Dr.Shaka Ssali in action.

Salaam Waleikum! Ndugu A.K. I am grateful to you for having raised these issues about Shaka Ssali's background. I had never for a moment thought that his names would cause concern to anyone. I have known Shaka and his family since we were young boys. He was a very famous athlete and most people who grew up in Kabale in the 1960s knew him as one of those athletically gifted boys on the soccer and track fields. So it would not be hard to verify the truth about Shaka. All one needs to do is to call anybody from Kabale aged 45 to 80 yrs and they will verify the truth that I am about to tell you about the Kabale Kid. Here are the facts: His ethnicity: Shaka Ssali is a Mukiga from Kigezi. He has never, ever claimed to be a Muganda. This is the first time that I hear anybody suggesting such. The reason why he did not know the Kiganda clan or Muziro to which his name was assigned is very simple. He did not need to. Now, knowing Shaka, I am sure he would be very happy to be called a Muganda, Acholi, Mugisu, or Zulu or any other African nationality. Indeed I would not be surprised if he has at one time or other jokingly "claimed" to be related to the Baganda, something which many of us who have lived in Buganda do quite frequently. [Many people call me "Mulira", a name to which I answer with a smile and pride. I would rather be called Mulira than Michael. And by the way, I may be even be related to you! Now that you say it I better find out what "my" Kiganda Clan is.] What about his names? Shaka Ssali is the son of the late John MuSHAKAmba, of Mwanjari, Kabale, Kigezi. His father was a well-known and respected businessman who, among other things, had a bar [where many of us were introduced to the potent liquids], a stone/sand quarry and a big lorry. The man we know as Shaka Ssali was born in Kabale, at a time when the Archdeacon of the Native Anglican Church (later Church of Uganda) was a wonderful Muganda gentleman called Rev. Ezekiel Balaba. The very much loved Balaba had a son called Ezera Ssali, and it was after him that Mushakamba, a Mukiga, named his son. It was fashionable to give children names that were considered exotic, or belonged to important people. Just like people named their children Charles after the British monarch's son, Mushakamba, named his son after his hero's son, Ssali. So the Kabale Kid has been called Ssali since he was less than one week of age, after Balaba's son. [My own father, who worked in Balaba's home to raise his own school fees, was baptized Ezera, copying Balaba's son's name. Kigezi is full of Ezeras and Zekyeris.] It is impossible to put in words what Ezekiel Balaba meant to the Bakiga, especially Abakristaayo. Don't forget that Buganda had a significant influence on many parts of Uganda, especially during the colonial era. You might be interested to know that I, a Mukiga from Kahondo ka Byamarembo in Kigezi, had an uncle called Kabaka. That was his name, presumably borrowed from Buganda. A very prominent Kabale businessman is called Mr. Balaba. He is a Mukiga from near Lake Bunyonyi. You know that former presidential candidate Dr. Besigye's first name is Kizza. He is from Rukungiri and not a Muganda. One of my schoolmates at Makerere Medical School was called Kaggwa, a gentleman from Acholi. Furthermore, there is a transition area in the West where names are shared with Buganda. So you find Wamara,(Wamala) Kavuma, Mukooza, Kakooza who are Banyankore. My late brother-in-law, a Munyankore was called Kakooza, and his brother is called Mulindwa. Their Luganda is worse thine mine! All this to show you that to us the name "Ssali" is not an issue whatsoever. The name "Shaka" is derived from his father's name, and NOT from the Zulu king's. However, the fact that the SHAKA part of his father's last name was the same as the great Zulu king's name was perfect for him. From his childhood until the late 1980s, he was called Mike Ssali. I am therefore not sure what you mean by "derived names". The records at Kinkungiri Primary School, Kigezi High School (Primary), Kigezi High School (Junior), Kigezi College, Butobere and Kololo Secondary School will show that there was a boy called Michael Ssali. This is one of those facts that need not detain us any longer really. The FACTS: The Kabale Kid is a MUKIGA, who was once called Mike Ssali, but who, like very many of us, chose to discard his "European name", [slave name to be exact] and adopted an African name, a meaningful African name, derived from his father's last name. These are facts that I will very gladly attest to in any court of law and before any Mullah or Rabbi. The allegation that Shaka "assumed his Ssali name from using someone else's academic credentials from the ministry of education" is very false and can only be advanced by those who are either not familiar with his career or are informed by malice. You see Shaka DOES NOT have an O-level certificate, something that amuses him to no end. He has talked about it many times. I have written about it before. [Check the 1992 issues of the defunct Weekly Topic where a profile a wrote about him was published.] The only Ugandan certificates that "Mike Ssali" has are the Primary Leaving Certificate and the Junior Leaving Certificate. You see, he was expelled from Kigezi College when he was in Senior Two. He then went to Kololo Secondary School where he DROPPED out in Senior THREE to join the Uganda Army in 1968, during Obote I. He trained as an Officer Cadet, became a Lieutenant and served in the army until 1974. He was attending a course in Greece when his biological uncle, Mr. James Karambuzi, was publicly executed by firing squad. Karambuzi was one of then guerrilla leader Yoweri Museveni's collaborators in Kabale and a true hero of the struggle. {See: Sowing the Mustard Seed, by Y.K. Museveni.] James Karambuzi's execution greatly affected many of us, and it depressed Lt. Ssali. He would soon join those who plotted a coup to overthrow Idi Amin in 1974. The coup failed. Like many officers involved in that coup, he was not caught, though he was soon discharged from the army together with many other officers. [See Cross to the Gun, by Col. Rwehururu, published by Monitor Publications last year. It gives a very good account about the personal struggles of many professional soldiers/officers in the Uganda Army under Idi Amin.] Shaka spent the next two years trying his hand at business, mostly in the Kigezi area. He did not do well in this effort. So in 1976, Mike Ssali, a school drop-out, ex-soldier, unsuccessful businessman, left for Germany to find work, new opportunities and personal safety. He eventually arrived in New York City in July 1976, without any academic certificates of any kind, without much money, but with a determination to succeed. We must save that story for another time, except to tell you that it really is a classic poor immigrant's struggle in a foreign land. I mean how did this high school drop-out end up with an honours bachelor's degree and two masters degrees (SUNY, Albany) and a PhD (UCLA) - all in a mere 10 years? It is his unusual journey against all these odds that probably makes people who do not know him summon fiction to explain what is by all measures a very extraordinary life and journey. I can understand. May I also comment on your last point? You wrote: "Benon, I am not digging dart for a potential presidential candidate, but we need to be careful before we endorse him, and excite the Baganda when in fact his royalty may not include Buganda." I can state with great confidence that Shaka's loyalty is to the human race, to Africa and to Uganda. Ask those in Washington who know him and they will affirm this. It goes without saying then that his loyalty is to all communities [Acholi, Ashanti, Buganda, Gikuyu, Kigezi, ...........Zulu etc.] that constitute those entities. To be sure, Shaka has little interest in parochial nationalism. I mean it when I say that the man's loyalty crosses all boundaries and cleavages. While our ethnic identities are important building blocks for our African family, and while I believe that we should celebrate and value our various nationalities, I personally would never support a person just because he/she shares my ancestral heritage. Personally the questions that I always ask about an individual or group or cause are: Is the person good? Is his/hers/theirs a right and just cause? It is a view that I know Shaka Ssali shares. Let me reiterate that to my knowledge Shaka Ssali is not seeking the presidency of Uganda or any other elected office. He really does NOT need endorsement for anything at this time. And lastly, is it not interesting though that someone would quibble with an African being called an African name (from a nationality that is three kilometres from his birthplace), but that someone would have no quarrel with an African being called "Michael" or "Michelle?"
Thank you for sharing so openly and honestly. Let's keep in touch. Sincerely, Muniini K. MuleraOmunaBusiro!

Pour un criminel comme « Paul KAGAME » : Joseph KABILA a retardé pour plus 2 heures le défilé de la fête de cinquantenaire au Congo !

Pour un criminel comme « Paul KAGAME » : Joseph KABILA a retardé pour plus 2 heures le défilé de la fête de cinquantenaire au Congo !
01/07/2010 11:04:00

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image Paul KAGAME et Roberto MUGABE le 30 Juin 2010 à la fête de cinquantenaire au Congo !

Qui dirige la RDC ? Joseph KABILA ou Paul KAGAME ? Les Congolais ont été scandalisés d’apprendre que Joseph "Kabila" a fait retarder de deux heures le démarrage du défilé jusqu’à l’arrivée de Paul Kagame dont l’avion accusait un retard de deux heures.

Mardi 29 juin, les Congolais avaient appris avec stupeur la venue à Kinshasa des présidents ougandais et rwandais pour assister à la parade militaire organisée le mercredi 30 juin dans le cadre de la commémoration des festivités du cinquantième anniversaire. Les mêmes Congolais ont été scandalisés d’apprendre que Joseph Kabila a fait retarder de deux heures le démarrage du défilé jusqu’à l’arrivée de Paul Kagame dont l’avion accusait un retard de deux heures. Des personnalités congolaises contactées par la rédaction de Congoindependant n’ont pas trouvé des mots assez durs pour pourfendre cet «aveu de subordination» de Joseph Kabila à l’égard de son homologue rwandais.

Il y a des signes qui ne trompent pas ! Dans son ouvrage «Epistémologie structuraliste et comparée, le professeur Kapumba Akenda écrivait notamment : «Les symboles n’ont aucune identité autonome. Ils ne s’approprient leur identité que dans leur référence à un autre élément qu’ils représentent…Dans l’usage quotidien des mots ou des signes, ce n’est pas la forme phonétique ou graphique qui nous intéresse, mais ce à quoi ils se rapportent, c’est-à-dire leur signification…»

Prévues à 9heures, mercredi 30 juin, la parade militaire organisée dans le cadre des festivités commémoratives du cinquantenaire de l’indépendance du Congo a accusé deux heures de retard chrono. Alors que la radio télévision publique belge francophone (RTBF) stigmatisait «l’arrivée en retard de certains chefs d’Etat» sans d’autres précisions, la télévision commerciale RTL TVI, elle, n’a pas usé de la langue de bois en désignant le «coupable». A savoir que «les festivités» ont été retardées «parce qu’on attendait l’arrivée de Paul Kagame». Ce dernier a snobé les autres chefs d’Etat présents dont le Roi Albert II en arrivant avec un retard de deux heures. C’est seulement après que le défilé a pu commencer. Un comble.
Message subliminal

Ce fait peut paraître banal pour les esprits non habitués à interpréter les signes et gestes des hommes. En matière protocolaire, toute personne invitée à une cérémonie doit s’imposer un devoir de ponctualité pour être à l’heure au rendez-vous. C’est un signe de courtoisie autant qu’une marque de respect envers ses hôtes et surtout envers les autres invités. Alors que tous les autres convives étaient arrivés à l’heure pour rejoindre les gradins érigés sur le boulevard Triomphal, l’homme fort de Kigali, lui, prenait son temps. Pour des raisons qui ne sont connues que de lui seul, il s’est arrangé pour arriver en retard. Pire, pendant l’allocution prononcée par Kabila, le satrape rwandais feuilletait distraitement un magazine. Comment interpréter ce geste ? Du mépris ? Une chose paraît sûre : ce geste n’est ni innocent, ni anodin. Le retard de Kagame constitue un message. L’indifférence affichée par le maître de Kigali pendant que son homologue congolais lisait son speech suggère que sa présence n’avait de sens que pour montrer qu’il est au-dessus de «Joseph» et il est capable de le faire marcher même pendant les moments importants et symboliques qui caractérisent et déterminent la vie de son pays. Faire attendre le début des événements, c’est une façon de faire rapporter l’attention sur sa personne.
Réactions

Les réactions n’ont pas tardé mercredi soir. «C’est un défi que Joseph Kabila a lancé à la population congolaise en invitant Paul Kagame et Yoweri Museveni à Kinshasa, commente un universitaire congolais. La RD Congo a été occupée par les armées de l’Ouganda et du Rwanda. Il est clair que Kabila a passé par pertes et profits tous les crimes commis par les soldats ougandais et rwandais.» Un des organisateurs de la manifestation de Bruxelles ne va pas par quatre chemins : «Je suis écoeuré. Kabila vient de démontrer qu’il n’est qu’une marionnette et que le véritable chef de l’Etat congolais est Paul Kagame.» Un étudiant congolais d’enchaîner : «L’assassin revient toujours sur le lieu du crime. La présence de Kagame à Kinshasa est une insulte à la mémoire des victimes des crimes commis par des troupes rwandaises au Congo.» Dernier ambassadeur du Zaïre à Bruxelles, Jean-Pierre Kimbulu Moyanso wa Lokwa qualifie la présence du leader rwandais à Kinshasa d’«inopportune». Au motif que la population congolaise n’a pas encore pansé ses plaies psychologiques suite aux événements décrits précédemment. «En retardant le démarrage du défilé, souligne l’ancien diplomate, Kabila vient de donner la preuve qu’il n’a jamais été qu’une marionnette au service de Kagame.» Joint au téléphone, mercredi soir à Kinshasa, l’UDPS Valentin Mubake Numbi donne sa lecture : «C’est depuis un an que Kigali et Kinshasa affichent au grand jour les relations entretenues en coulisses au plan économique, politique et militaire. Ce n’est pas étonnant de voir Kagame à Kinshasa. Vous le savez comme quoi que le pouvoir rwandais fait face à des difficultés internes. Le général rwandais Kayumba Nyamwasa a été victime d’un attentat en Afrique du Sud. Selon son épouse, le commando a été recruté par les dirigeants rwandais. Kigali a intérêt à se montrer conciliant avec ses voisins»

Selon des sources à Kinshasa, Kabila "a franchi le rubicon" après avoir "testé à maintes reprises la capacité d’indignation des Congolais". A en croire une source bien informée, le Rwanda de Paul Kagame est devenu le "protecteur" du chef de l’Etat congolais. D’où les voyages incessants du général James Kabarebe en RD Congo. Il semble que deux mille soldats de l’armée rwandaise sont basés dans la province du Bas-Congo. A Mbandaka, c’est un général rwandais, Janvier Mayanga, qui dirige la région militaire. Selon des témoins, des militaires rwandais ont été déployés à Kinshasa en prévision du défilé du 30 juin.

En arrivant mercredi en retard à la cérémonie prévue sur le boulevard Triomphal, Kagame a voulu envoyer un message «subliminal» aux Congolais en général et aux Kinois en particulier. Ce message se décline comme suit : "Me voici. Je suis là dans votre capitale. Moi qui vous ai envahi, fais tuer vos frères et sœurs, piller vos richesses. Je suis là et je continue à vous diriger par personne interposée à qui je donne des ordres." Faustin Kwakwa/Issa Djema/B.A.W
Pour un criminel et un assassin comme Paul KAGAME, la cérémonie a été retardé pour plus de deux heures

Opening the Secret Files on Lumumba's Murder

Opening the Secret Files on Lumumba's Murder

By Stephen R. Weissman


In his latest film, "Minority Report," director Steven Spielberg portrays a policy of "preemptive action" gone wild in the year 2054. But we don't have to peer into the future to see what harm faulty intelligence and the loss of our moral compass can do. U.S. policies during the Cold War furnish many tragic examples. One was U.S. complicity in the overthrow and murder of Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba.

Forty-one years ago, Lumumba, the only leader ever democratically elected in Congo, was delivered to his enemies, tortured and summarily executed. Since then, his country has been looted by the U.S.-supported regime of Mobutu Sese Seko and wracked by regional and civil war.

The conventional explanation of Lumumba's death has been that he was murdered by Congolese rivals after earlier U.S. attempts to kill him, including a plot to inject toxins into his food or toothpaste, failed. In 1975, the U.S. Senate's "Church Committee" probed CIA assassination plots and concluded there was "no evidence of CIA involvement in bringing about the death of Lumumba."

Not so. I have obtained classified U.S. government documents, including a chronology of covert actions approved by a National Security Council (NSC) subgroup, that reveal U.S. involvement in -- and significant responsibility for -- the death of Lumumba, who was mistakenly seen by the Eisenhower administration as an African Fidel Castro. The documents show that the key Congolese leaders who brought about Lumumba's downfall were players in "Project Wizard," a CIA covert action program. Hundreds of thousands of dollars and military equipment were channeled to these officials, who informed their CIA paymasters three days in advance of their plan to send Lumumba into the clutches of his worst enemies. Other new details: The U.S. authorized payments to then-President Joseph Kasavubu four days before he ousted Lumumba, furnished Army strongman Mobutu with money and arms to fight pro-Lumumba forces, helped select and finance an anti-Lumumba government, and barely three weeks after his death authorized new funds for the people who arranged Lumumba's murder.

Moreover, these documents show that the plans and payments were approved by the highest levels of the Eisenhower administration, either the NSC or its "Special Group," consisting of the national security adviser, CIA director, undersecretary of state for political affairs, and deputy defense secretary.

These facts are four decades old, but are worth unearthing for two reasons. First, Congo (known for years as Zaire) is still struggling to establish democracy and stability. By facing up to its past role in undermining Congo's fledgling democracy, the United States might yet contribute to Congo's future. Second, the U.S. performance in Congo is relevant to our struggle against terrorism. It shows what can happen when, in the quest for national security, we abandon the democratic principles and rule of law we are fighting to defend.

In February, Belgium, the former colonial power in Congo, issued a thousand-page report that acknowledged "an irrefutable portion of responsibility in the events that led to the death of Lumumba." Unlike Belgium, the United States has admitted no such moral responsibility. Over the years, scholars (including myself) and journalists have written that American policy played a major role in the ouster and assassination of Lumumba. But the full story remained hidden in U.S. documents, which, like those I have examined, are still classified despite the end of the Cold War, the end of the Mobutu regime and Belgium's confession.

Here's what they tell us that, until now, we didn't know, or didn't know for certain:ï In August 1960, the CIA established Project Wizard. Congo had been independent only a month, and Lumumba, a passionate nationalist, had become prime minister, with a plurality of seats in the parliament. But U.S. presidential candidate John F. Kennedy was vowing to meet "the communist challenge" and Eisenhower's NSC was worried that Lumumba would tilt toward the Soviets.

The U.S. documents show that over the next few months, the CIA worked with and made payments to eight top Congolese -- including President Kasavubu, Mobutu (then army chief of staff), Foreign Minister Justin Bomboko, top finance aide Albert Ndele, Senate President Joseph Ileo and labor leader Cyrille Adoula -- who all played roles in Lumumba's downfall.

The CIA joined Belgium in a plan, detailed in the Belgian report, for Ileo and Adoula to engineer a no-confidence vote in Lumumba's government, which would be followed by union-led demonstrations, the resignations of cabinet ministers (organized by Ndele) and Kasavubu's dismissal of Lumumba.

ï On Sept. 1, the NSC's Special Group authorized CIA payments to Kasavubu, the U.S. documents say. On Sept. 5, Kasavubu fired Lumumba in a decree of dubious legality. However, Kasavubu and his new prime minister, Ileo, proved lethargic over the following week as Lumumba rallied supporters. So Mobutu seized power on Sept. 14. He kept Kasavubu as president and established a temporary "College of Commissioners" to replace the disbanded government.

ï The CIA financed the College and influenced the selection of commissioners. The College was dominated by two Project Wizard participants: Bomboko, its president, and Ndele, its vice-president. Another CIA ally, Lumumba party dissident Victor Nendaka, was appointed chief of the security police.

ï On Oct. 27, the NSC Special Group approved $250,000 for the CIA to win parliamentary support for a Mobutu government. However, when legislators balked at approving any prime minister other than Lumumba, the parliament remained closed. The CIA money went to Mobutu personally and the commissioners.

ï On Nov. 20, the Special Group authorized the CIA to provide arms, ammunition, sabotage materials and training to Mobutu's military in the event it had to resist pro-Lumumba forces.

The full extent of what one U.S. document calls the "intimate" relationship between the CIA and Congolese leaders was absent from the Church Committee report. The only covert action (apart from the assassination plots) the committee discussed was the August 1960 effort to promote labor opposition and a no-confidence vote in the Senate.How did Lumumba die? After being ousted Sept. 5, Lumumba rallied support in parliament and the international community. When Mobutu took over, U.N. troops protected Lumumba, but soon confined him to his residence. Lumumba escaped on Nov. 27. Days later he was captured by Mobutu's troops, beaten and arrested.

What happened next is clearer thanks to the Belgian report and the classified U.S. documents. As early as Christmas Eve 1960, College of Commissioners' president Bomboko offered to hand Lumumba over to two secessionist leaders who had vowed to kill him. One declined and nothing happened until mid-January 1961, when the central government's political and military position deteriorated and troops guarding Lumumba (then jailed on a military base near the capital) mutinied. CIA and other Western officials feared a Lumumba comeback.

On Jan. 14, the commissioners asked Kasavubu to move Lumumba to a "surer place." There was "no doubt," the Belgian inquiry concluded, that Mobutu agreed. Kasavubu told security chief Nendaka to transfer Lumumba to one of the secessionist strongholds. On Jan. 17, Nendaka sent Lumumba to the Katanga region. That night, Lumumba and two colleagues were tortured and executed in the presence of members of the Katangan government. No official announcement was made for four weeks.

What did the U.S. government tell its Congolese clients during the last three days of Lumumba's life? The Church Committee reported that a Congolese "government leader" advised the CIA's Congo station chief, Larry Devlin, on Jan. 14 that Lumumba was to be sent to "the home territory" of his "sworn enemy." Yet, according to the Church Committee and declassified documents, neither the CIA nor the U.S. embassy tried to save the former prime minister.

The CIA may not have exercised robotic control over its covert political action agents, but the failure of Devlin or the U.S. embassy to question the plans for Lumumba could only be seen by the Congolese as consent. After all, secret CIA programs had enabled this group to achieve political power, and the CIA had worked from August through November 1960 to assassinate or abduct Lumumba.

Here, the classified U.S. chronology provides an important postscript. On Feb. 11, 1961, with U.S. reports from Congo strongly indicating Lumumba was dead, the Special Group authorized $500,000 for political action, troop payments and military equipment, largely to the people who had arranged Lumumba's murder.

Devlin has sought to distance himself from Lumumba's death. While the CIA was in close contact with the Congolese officials involved, Devlin told the Church Committee that those officials "were not acting under CIA instructions if and when they did this." In a recent phone conversation with Devlin, I posed the issue of U.S. responsibility for Lumumba's death. He acknowledged that, "It was important to [these] cooperating leaders what the U.S. government thought." But he said he did "not recall" receiving advance word of Lumumba's transfer. Devlin added that even if he had objected, "That would not have stopped them from doing it."

By evading its share of moral responsibility for Lumumba's fate, the United States blurs African and American history and sidesteps the need to make reparation for yesterday's misdeeds through today's policy. In 1997, after the Mobutu regime fell, the Congolese democratic opposition pleaded in vain for American and international support. Since then, as many as 3 million lives have been lost as a result of civil and regional war. The United States has not supported a strong U.N. peacekeeping force or fostered a democratic transition. The collapse in late April 2002 of negotiations between Congolese factions threatens to reignite the smoldering conflict or ratify the partition of the country.

Our government's actions four decades ago in Congo also have special meaning after the tragedy of Sept. 11. They warn that even as we justly defend our land and our people against terrorists, we must avoid the excessive fear and zeal that lead to destructive intervention betraying our most fundamental principles.

Stephen Weissman is author of "A Culture of Deference; Congress's Failure of Leadership in Foreign Policy" (Basic Books). He was staff director of the U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee on Africa from 1986 to 1991.

© 2002 The Washington Post Company

The Congo: How and why the West organised Lumumba's assassination

The Congo: How and why the West organised Lumumba's assassination
Review of two BBC documentaries: Who Killed Lumumba?, and Mobutu
By Linda Slattery
10 January 2001

Later this year the Belgian parliament is due to report on the murder of the Congo's first prime minister after independence, Patrice Lumumba in January 1961. The circumstances of Lumumba's death have been shrouded in mystery for forty years, but as the Congo's vast mineral wealth is once again becoming a focus for imperialist rivalries, documents long hidden in official archives have been brought to light.

Last year, the BBC ran two documentaries on the tragic history of this central African state. Who Killed Lumumba?, was screened as part of the channel's Correspondent series. It drew heavily on the forthcoming new book by Belgian historian Ludo de Witte (The Murder of Lumumba, Verso Books, ISBN: 1859846181, published June 2001). De Witte has put together the facts of the case from official Belgian archives and the documentary also used archive film footage and interviewed surviving witnesses, to show that Lumumba was murdered in a plot masterminded by Western governments.

Mobutu, from the BBC's Storyville documentary series, reveals how the Western powers put Joseph Sese Seko Mobutu in power after the death of Lumumba, keeping him there for 32 years while he systematically looted the country. Mobutu became the west's main Cold War ally in Africa, and the Congo formed the staging post for CIA operations against Soviet-backed African regimes.

The film reveals the very close personal and political relationship that existed between Mobutu and several Western leaders. We see film clips of Mobutu being embraced by Jacques Chirac (now President of France), and sitting next to the British Queen in the royal carriage. For many years, until he fell out of favour at the end of the Cold War, Mobutu remained a friend of the Belgian king, but his closest friends were President George Bush Snr. and his family.

Between 1885 and 1908, some five to eight million fell victim to King Leopold of Belgium's personal rule over the Congo, under a barbarous system of forced labour and systematic terror. In 1959, the Belgium government finally decided to grant the Congo independence. The first elections brought Patrice Lumumba to power as prime minister. But his government was an unstable coalition of regional interests, and collapsed within a week. Sections of the army mutinied and the mineral rich province of Katanga seceded.

Who Killed Lumumba? featured important new material about the Katanga secession. Ludo de Witte has uncovered documents in the Belgian archives showing that Moise Tshombe, who led the secession, acted on orders from the Belgian government, which has always claimed that it only sent troops into Katanga to protect Belgian lives and property. De Witte's researches have shown that the Belgians plotted to dismember the Congo.

US Documents released last August reveal that President Eisenhower directly ordered the CIA to assassinate Lumumba. Minutes of an August 1960 National Security Council meeting confirm that Eisenhower told CIA chief Allen Dulles to “eliminate” Lumumba. The official note taker, Robert H. Johnson, had told the Senate Intelligence Committee this in 1975, but no documentary evidence was previously available to back up his statement.

Larry Devlin, the CIA's man in the Congo at the time, told the BBC filmmakers how he had been told to meet “Joe from Paris”, who turned out to be the CIA's chief technical officer, Dr Sidney Gottlieb. “I recognised him as he walked towards my car,” recalled Devlin, “but when he told me what they wanted done I was totally, totally taken aback.” Gottlieb gave him a tube of poisoned toothpaste, which Devlin was to smuggle into Lumumba's bathroom.

He claims he never did so, because “I had never suggested assassination, nor did I believe it was advisable.” Instead, “I threw it in the Congo River when its usefulness had expired.”

The “usefulness” of the poison expired rather quickly because Lumumba was murdered very soon afterwards, at the hands of Belgian agents.

Eisenhower was not alone in coming to the conclusion that Lumumba must die. A British Foreign Office document from September 1960 notes the opinion of a top ranking official, who later became the head of MI5, that, "I see only two possible solutions to the [Lumumba] problem. The first is the simple one of ensuring [his] removal from the scene by killing him." What steps, if any, were taken to put this plan into action remain unknown.

De Witte's work reveals the steps that the Belgian government took to remove Lumumba. Belgian military chiefs made nightly visits to Mobutu, then head of the army, and President Kasavubu, to plot Lumumba's downfall. Colonel Louis Maliere spoke of the millions of francs he brought over for this purpose. The plot to kill Lumumba was called “Operation Barracuda” and was run by the Belgian Minister for African Affairs, Count d'Aspremont.

The Belgium government ordered Kasavubu to sack Lumumba, who turned to the new parliament and won two votes of confidence. Mobutu then lead a coup d'état and Lumumba was placed under house arrest, from which he escaped only to be captured by troops loyal to Mobutu.

Contemporary film shows UN troops standing by while Lumumba is first beaten in front of Mobutu, then paraded through the streets of Leopoldville (now Kinshasa) and finally beaten again. When taken to Thysville prison, he almost provoked a mutiny among the guards.

Count d'Aspremont ordered him be taken to Katanga province and certain death. On the flight there, he and two supporters—Maurice Mpolo and Joseph Okite—were beaten so badly the pilot complained the plane was in danger of crashing. All three were shot by a firing squad commanded by Belgian officers and watched by Moise Tshombe.

The Belgian commander of the Katangan police force, Gerard Soete, was given the grisly job of destroying the bodies. Enlisting the support of a friend, they chopped up the corpses before dissolving them in acid. Soete recalls that they were drunk for the two days because, “We did things an animal wouldn't do.”

Both these films do a valuable job in bringing to the attention of a wider audience the new evidence about Lumumba's death and in revealing the way in which the imperialist powers supported Mobutu's dictatorial regime. However, what neither of them fully explains is why the West acted as it did. They present the assassination of Lumumba and the installation of Mobutu as simply part of the Cold War rivalry between the West and Moscow.

The central mystery of Lumumba's death remains. Why was he killed? Why was the might of at least three Western powers bent on eliminating this one man—even as he was held prisoner, reviled and beaten by his captors and was without military or political power. Some say the answer is that he posed a threat to the West because he was a committed Pan-Africanist, and since his death he has certainly taken on the status of a Pan-African martyr.

By late 1959 Britain and America had concluded that, far from representing a threat, Pan-Africanism offered the best chance for preventing revolution in Africa. And Pan-Africanists of much longer standing than Lumumba, such as Nkrumah, Kenyatta, Nyerere, Obote and Azikiwe had also come to power around this time.

The experience of the Congo, with its million-strong working class the largest on the continent outside South Africa, was a powerful factor in bringing them to that conclusion. When strikes and demonstrations broke out in 1959 as the mineral boom ended, the Belgian government decided to grant its colony independence. Their repressive apparatus was geared up to brutalising a divided and dispersed rural population, not an increasingly well-organised working class that was losing its local and communal loyalties.

When Lumumba showed that he could not be relied upon to control the Congolese working class, his fate was sealed. The West decided to make an example of him to the masses and to other African leaders, to show what would happen if they opposed imperialist dictates. Mobutu, who had impressed the CIA on his brief visits to Brussels as Lumumba's secretary, was chosen as the better candidate to safeguard Western interests. Through a mixture of brutality and political guile, Mobutu succeeded in ensuring that the Congo (renamed Zaire) did not become the flashpoint for an African socialist revolution

Spanish President Zapatero Warned Against Working with Criminal Kagame

Spanish President Zapatero Warned Against Working with Criminal Kagame

by David O'Brian

Madrid, Spain.

by AfroAmerica Network

http://www.afroamerica.net/AfricaGL

Spanish Citizens have asked their President, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, to decline his appointment by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to serve as Co-Chair of the UN Millennium Development Goals Initiative along with the Rwandan Dictator, General Paul Kagame. The key initiators of the petition against the appointment, Joan Carrero, president, Fundació S´Olivar and Bernat Vicens, president, Drets Humans de Mallorca, argue that the UN is a corrupt institution and that President Zapatero risks to go down in history as the President of Spain who shook the bloody hands and sat the same table with one of the worst criminal in human history.

The authors of the petition to the Spanish President write: “Mr. Zapatero: this denunciation is not against you, but rather for your sake. It’s the denunciation made by people who are deeply disappointed with your behavior concerning this current major conflict, a conflict in which nine Spanish nationals were murdered following orders from Kagame. It’s the denunciation by people who back then voted for you and even now don’t want to see you stoop so low. Don’t yield once again, Mr. President. Not this time, please. It would be far too humiliating. Be wary of those people who, whether outside or even inside your inner circle, lead you to such embarrassing situations. Don’t insult so many of us Spaniards who understand the meaning of what you are about to do. Now you can’t say you weren’t informed. Or is it, rather, that you are paying off some ‘favor’ to those who call the shots in the world?

Mr. Zapatero, don’t be co-chair of the Millenium Goals with Kagame, don’t go down in history as the accomplice of such a fiend and his extremely powerful godfathers in their operations of global pillaging and deceit. They will be brought to light in the short run. Don’t lend them a hand, don’t stain your own hands with innocent blood. This attempt to clean up the image of this thug Kagame and of his criminal pillage of Congo is so blatant and preposterous that it will most certainly backfire.”

The house that genocide built: Why Rwanda is still worth worrying aboutThe house that genocide built: Why Rwanda is still worth worrying about

The house that genocide built: Why Rwanda is still worth worrying about
By JONATHAN CURIEL
President Paul Kagame of Rwanda

Image of Paul Kagame via Wikipedia

Somalia. Sudan. Iraq. Afghanistan. Pakistan. Haiti. North Korea. Lebanon. Iran. All these countries top Rwanda in the latest Failed States Index. (In 2009, Rwanda was ranked No. 49.) All these countries have long eclipsed Rwanda for the world’s attention. The 1994 genocide that decimated Rwanda happened a generation ago, but the country is still a nation in turmoil – evident by two big news events of the past week: Rwanda’s arrest and release of a U.S. lawyer, who was accused of denying the country’s official facts on the mass killings; and Rwanda’s alleged involvement in the assassination attempt on a former Rwandan general, who was living in South Africa.

The general will reportedly survive his critical injuries. And the lawyer is free to return to the United States. Both cases, though, highlight Rwanda’s ongoing instability. The country has made giant strides since the murders of 800,000 men, women and children, but critics have voiced doubts about Rwanda’s progress, and about Rwandan president Paul Kagame, who was a central figure in stopping the 1994 genocide but is now accused of quashing dissent. I interviewed Kagame in 2005, at a university event in California that was protested by Africans holding signs like, “Paul Kagame is a criminal.” The demonstrators – Africans now living in the United States – called Kagame a hypocrite for overseeing Rwandan military control of a neighboring portion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Like other countries involved in the Congo war, Rwanda stole millions of dollars in minerals. A United Nations report said Kagame and Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni had virtually turned into the “godfathers of the illegal exploitation of natural resources and the continuation of the conflict in the DRC.”

In Rwanda, Kagame has stifled opposition through “divisionism” laws that essentially require Rwandans to repeat the government’s accepted version of the 1994 genocide, which minimizes Tutsi atrocities. Kagame is Tutsi. Presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, who believes that all Rwandan war crimes should be investigated, has been put under house arrest in the lead-up to new elections in August. Human Rights Watch has criticized Kagame’s crackdown on opposition candidates, and its undermining of Human Rights Watch’s work in Rwanda.

“The Rwandan government often accuses its critics of ‘divisionism’ or ‘genocide ideology,’ vaguely defined offenses to punish the spreading of ideas that encourage ethnic animosity between the country’s Tutsi and Hutu populations and the expression of any ideas that could lead to genocide,” the organization wrote late last year. “Largely aimed at the Hutu population, such offenses permit, among other measures, the government to send away children of any age to rehabilitation centers for up to one year—including for the teasing of classmates—and for parents and teachers to face sentences of 15 to 25 years for the child’s conduct. The government has repeatedly accused the Voice of America, the British Broadcasting Corporation and other media outlets, as well as Human Rights Watch, of promoting genocide ideology; accusations these organizations deny.”

Kagame’s government denies these charges of intimidation, but its finger-pointing at the media is another sign of the back-sliding that Rwanda has taken. Just like in 1994, Rwanda is in the news for all the wrong reasons. And just like in 1994, the world should be paying close attention. Otherwise, Rwanda may move even higher in the Failed States Index, vaulting past countries that offer their own grim lessons in instability, dysfunction, and violent upheavals.

Plane with Australian mining executives missing in Africa

(CNN) -- Australian mining magnate Ken Talbot is among nine passengers in a plane reported missing after it took off from Cameroon en route to the Republic of the Congo, his company said Sunday.

Most of the passengers aboard the chartered flight were employees of Australian mining company Sundance Resources, including some executives.

Talbot, 59, is the director of Sundance, said Brian Thornton, a spokesman for Talbot Group.

The plane had taken off from Yaounde on Saturday. It was reported missing after it failed to land in Yangadou in the Republic of Congo.

The group was visiting Sundance's iron ore project in Cameroon and Congo, according to the company.

"The families of the missing have been notified and are being supported during this deeply distressing time," the company said.

A search was under way between the takeoff point and the intended destination. Military forces in Congo and Cameroon were helping in the search, the company said.

Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzanie - Burundi : un chemin de fer en vue vers le Rwanda et la Tanzanie pour l'exploitation du nickel

Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzanie - Burundi : un chemin de fer en vue vers le Rwanda et la Tanzanie pour l'exploitation du nickel
(Xinhuanet 18/06/2010)
YAOUNDE -- Le Burundi projette de construire un chemin de fer en direction du Rwanda et de la Tanzanie pour le transport du nickel en voie d'exploitation dans ce pays d'Afrique centrale enclavé et secoué par une longue guerre civile d'environ 15 ans (1993-2007), a confié à Xinhua à Yaoundé le ministre burundais des Transports, des Postes et des Télécommunications, Philippe Njoni.
"Le Burundi a pris du retard pour l'exploitation de ses richesses naturelles. D'abord, il a préféré commencé par les recherches. Et les recherches aujourd'hui prouvent que le sous-sol du Burundi est riche, surtout de nickel. Le nickel burundais a une teneur prouvée qui est proche de celui de la Nouvelle-Calédonie", a-t-il indiqué.
"Aujourd'hui, c'est une matière première qui est très recherchée sur le marché mondial. Et beaucoup de sociétés privées commencent à s'intéresser à ce nickel-là. Nous sommes en train de d'envisager la construction d'infrastructures hydrauliques pour pouvoir trouver de l'énergie", a-t-il poursuivi.
Enclavé, ce petit pays d'une superficie de 27.830 km2 dépend de ses voisins, en l'occurrence le Rwanda, la Tanzanie et la République démocratique du Congo (RDC), pour ses échanges commerciaux avec l'extérieur. Par exemple, "l'essentiel de l' énergie consommée au Burundi provient de la République démocratique du Congo", note M. Njoni.
Idem pour les matériaux de construction achetés en Tanzanie, au port de Dar es-Salaam, prévu pour permettre le transport du nickel et des produits dérivés à travers le chemin de fer annoncé.
"Des fois, quand nous sommes en difficulté, nous importons aussi du sucre de Malawi, dans le cadre du COMESA [ndlr : marché commun de l'Afrique de l'Est]", informe en outre le ministre des Transports.
Et pour l'exportation, "du côté de l'Est, mentionne-t-il encore, c'est beaucoup plus les produits pétroliers que nous faisons passer, aussi le café, le thé et les produits d'horticulture". Pour lui, "le fait que nous soyons enclavés fait qu'on est obligés de traverser beaucoup de postes-frontières". De fait, "une des missions de nos dirigeants est de briser ces barrières tarifaires et non tarifaires et de construire des postes-frontières communs pour résoudre les coûts de transport".
A en croire le ministre, le Burundi ne dispose pas de beaucoup de ressources minérales pour se doter d'une industrie propre au pays. Mais, outre son nickel, il compte par ailleurs se lancer dans la mise en valeur d'une autre matière première de grande importance : l'or, encore exploité de façon artisanale.
"On est en train de voir dans quelle mesure les sociétés plus habilitées pourraient commencer l'exploitation industrielle. Parce qu'il n'y a pas de raison qu'au Congo voisin et en Tanzanie on exploite cette ressource de façon industrielle et qu'au Burundi on ne puisse pas le faire", annonce Philippe Njoni.
"Nous pensons que d'ici 2014-2015 ce chemin de fer pourra être opérationnel et cette ressource pourra apporter une plus value à l' économie burundaise", affirme le ministre des Transports.

RDC : "Une des pires crises humanitaires au monde"

RDC : "Une des pires crises humanitaires au monde"
Les Nations-Unis vivent « l’une des pires crises humanitaires au monde » en République démocratique du Congo (RDC). L'ONU ne pouvait être plus claire. La porte-parole du Bureau de coordination des affaires humanitaires des Nations unies, Elisabeth Byrs, a expliqué que « travailler en RDC est devenu un véritable défi pour les humanitaires tant pour des raisons de sécurité que du manque de financement »... la sonnette d'alarme est également tirée par toutes les ONG présentent sur le terrain.
Deux préoccupations sont avancées par l'ONU sur place : le manque de moyens (les programmes de ces agences ne sont financés qu’à hauteur de 30 %) et « si l’aide financière n’arrive pas, nous allons être obligés de réduire notre assistance à une population qui en a cruellement besoin » estime Elisabeth Byrs. Autre sujet de préoccupation : la violence subie par les populations « du fait des exactions de groupes armés, dont l’Armée de résistance du Seigneur (LRA), qui ne cessent d’augmenter », d'après l'ONUs. Et les humanitaires sont autant visés que les civils par les combats et le banditisme.
Rappelons que depuis 2007, la LRA a tué 1796 civils, enlevés 2377 personnes dont 807 enfants. Et entre décembre 2009 et mars 2010, la LRA a tué 407 civils et enlevés 302 personnes dont 125 enfants. Dans les régions du Kivu et la province du Maniema, à l’Est de la RDC, les maltraitances sexuelles se multiplient. Rien qu’en 2009, « il y a eu 8 000 cas de viols rapportés dont la majorité ont été perpétrés par des hommes en armes », selon l'ONU.
L'Armée de la résistance du seigneur (LRA), groupe rebelle tristement célèbre pour ses exactions contre les civils, mène des attaques de plus en plus meurtrières en République démocratique du Congo (RDC) et continue d'enlever des enfants pour les utiliser comme soldats dans ses rangs. La LRA, qui combat le gouvernement en Ouganda depuis plus de 20 ans, a accru sa présence dans cette région reculée du nord-est de la RDC.

par afrikarabia2.blogs.courrierinternational.com

Rwanda and Congo refugees on Kagame's arrest of Prof. Erlinder

June 16, 2010 - Congolese refugee and organizer Kambale Musavuli and Rwandan refugee, organizer, and genocide survivor Claude Gatebuke spoke to WBAI Radio-NYC this week about Kagame's arrest of US Law Professor Peter Erlinder in Rwanda.
Claude Gatebuke demonstrated outside Oklahoma Christian University, where Rwandan President Paul Kagame was giving the commencement address on April 30th, 2010, when a team of lawyers, private investigators, and process servers, including Professor Erlinder, attempted to serve him with the lawsuit, Habyarimana vs. Kagame, on behalf of widows Agatha Habyarimana and Sylvana Ntaryamira, accusing Kagame and nine of his top officers and officials of assassinating their husbands, Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira, in 1994, and thus triggering the Rwanda Genocide which cost upwards of a million Rwandan lives. The lawsuit also accuses Kagame and his officers and officials of racketeering in eastern Congo at a cost of six million more African lives, Rwandan and Congolese.

Kambale Musavuli, Student Coordinator of Friends of the Congo, is an outspoken critic of Rwandan President Paul Kagame, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, Congolese President Joseph Kabila, and the multinational corporate misdeeds and UK and US military interventions in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, which includes his own home country, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Republic of Rwanda.
Gatebuke, Musavuli, and other activists, non-profit organizations, and lawyers' associations, and Professor Erlinder's daughter Sarah Erlinder and wife created a Free Peter Erlinder Now website, Free Prof. Erlinder Now Facebook page, and a companion Youtube Channel.

Exiled Rwandan general accuses Kagame

An exiled Rwandan general accused President Paul Kagame on Sunday of abusing an anti-graft drive to frame his opponents in the central African country which holds presidential elections in August.

Lieutenant-General Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa fled to South Africa earlier this year after falling out with Kagame in what regional analysts see as a growing rift between the president and top aides in the party and army.

"If accountability is going to be used as a political weapon to frame perceived opponents, then it ceases to be meaningful or useful," Nyamwasa said in a statement printed in the Ugandan newspaper the Monitor on Sunday.

Neither the president's office nor the government spokeswoman were immediately available for comment.

The country's ombudsman, Tito Rutaremara, denied the allegations and said the war on graft, which has earned Rwanda plaudits from donors and watchdogs, is independent of political interference and integral to the nation's development.

Analysts say the flight of Nyamwasa, who fought alongside Kagame to end the 1994 genocide, the arrest of two other senior officers and a military reshuffle are signs of a growing rift a between the president and top aides.

Washington worried
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson said last week that the Rwandan government had taken "a series of worrying actions".

In the run up to polls, Rwanda has suspended two independent newspapers, arrested a high-profile opposition figure, expelled a human rights researcher and prevented two opposition parties from registering, Carson told the U.S. Congress.

Rwandan authorities link Nyamwasa and another fugitive senior officer in South Africa to a series of deadly grenade attacks in the capital this year and accuse him of nepotism, divisionism and the "primitive accumulation of wealth".

Nyamwasa rejected the charges and accused the president of hypocrisy over his zero tolerance stance on corruption.

"(He) should explain to the party and to the people of Rwanda why he heads a party without a treasurer and how much money the RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Front) has since it owns all the biggest companies in the country and contributions of party members," Nyamwasa said. "In Rwanda, President Kagame is the institutions."

Rutaremara said Nyamwasa was himself corrupt and should accept that he had made mistakes.
Transparency International labels Rwanda the least corrupt country in the region, while the World Bank said it was the best global business reformer in 2009.

Source: Reuters

Congolese Police made several arrests in connection with Floribert Chebeya Death

Several arrested for Congo activist's death

By PATRICE CITERA (AP) – 1 day ago

KINSHASA, Congo — Several arrests have been made in connection to the killing this week of a leading Congolese human rights activist, a police commander in the country's capital said Saturday.

Gen. Jean-de-Dieu Oleko said that several police officers were arrested late Friday as part of a preliminary investigation into the death of Floribert Chebeya Bahizire. He would not give further details on those arrested.


The body of Bahizire, head of Voix des Sans Voix, or Voice of the Voiceless, was found in his car Wednesday in a suburb of Congo's capital. The rights group, one of the largest in Congo, said he appeared to have been strangled.

Also Saturday, a group of Congolese and international organizations called for independent inquiry into the death of Bahizire and the disappearance of his driver, Fidele Bazana Edadi.

"Responding to Floribert Chebeya Bahizires death with concrete actions that ensure justice is important not only to end impunity for attacks on human rights defenders, but also to help protect other Congolese human rights defenders and journalists who face intimidation, threats and harassment," the 55 Congolese and international rights organizations said in an open letter to Congo's President Joseph Kabila.

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Africa Foundation were among those who signed the letter.

For more than 20 years, Bahizire had suffered a pattern of intimidation because of his work, Navi Pillay, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights said Thursday. The U.N. also said that its peacekeeping mission in Congo is prepared to assist in an investigation, if requested.

The U.S. State Department Friday said that those responsible for the "apparent assassination" must be held accountable, and also called for a quick autopsy to find out how he died.

Amnesty International said Bahizire was last heard from Tuesday night, when he sent a text to a family member saying that he had just met with a senior police official and was headed home. Passers-by later found his body.

The rights groups and the U.N. all said they were concerned by a growing trend of harassment of human rights activists in Congo. In 2005, a human rights activist was killed in his home in the country's east. Since then, at least three journalists have been killed, and Human Rights Watch said none of the investigations into the deaths has been satisfactory.

For the past two decades, Voix des Sans Voix has worked to document human rights abuses across Congo, focusing on corruption in the military and foreign support for militias, according to the U.N.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.