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Letter to the London Editors:
Par Antoine Roger Lokongo
Let me take this opportunity to explain to your readers “WHY THE WHOLE WORLD IS TURNING A BLIND EYE TO A SILENT GENOCIDE NOW TAKING PLACE IN THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO, which has proved that the holocaust have happened without anybody knowing about it.Since 2 August 1998, more than 5 million Congolese have been massacred by invading troops from Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi with the complicity of some Congolese rebel puppets - Puppets because the rebellion was established only 20 days after the invasion to give it some sort of Congolese legitimacy – and the full knowledge of the international community. Powerful countries, namely American, British, Belgian, French and South African governments and multinationals have vested interests in Congo’s vast natural and mineral resources and are therefore behind this war of aggression.
It is hard for anybody to believe that Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, three small and poor countries who only produce coffee, tea and bananas, can very much against the international law, afford to aggress an immense country such as the Congo, so rich in minerals and which can mobilise its 60 million inhabitants to kick them out. They have dared to do so because they enjoy the backing of external forces, especially Britain and American who are known to have military bases throughout Rwanda and Uganda where they train troops before unleashing them into Congo to kill and loot. The presence of these countries in the Congo under the pretext of suppressing Hutu militia extremists responsible for the 1994 is an alibi as time has shown. But this is the mantra the Western media always repeat.
Ask yourself! Has the war in the Congo anything to do defense missiles and new space shuttles to be built after the demise of Russia’s MIR and the proliferation of mobile phones here manufactured out of coltan? The answer is YES. You need most of the materials from the Congo to build those things. Sadly the media here have positioned themselves on the side of those interests. Proof? Every time Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda announced the capture of a major Congolese locality, the media hurried to state precisely its economic importance.
The recent report by a UN panel of experts on the illegal exploitation and plundering of Congo’s natural and mineral resources has clearly established that the actions of Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi who are in violation of the sovereignty of the Democratic Republic of Congo stand out as most objectionable. Yet instead of punishing Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi for their crimes in the Congo and for invading a sovereign state, The US and Britain reckon their goal is not to punish or apportion blame, in the words of James Cunningham, the American ambassador to the UN. And the greatest sin of all: these two powerful countries have requested another deeper investigation. It is like asking what sex a naked dog is.
Edward Marek, editor of the New Century Net, an American website wrote and I quote: “Since it has been established that this is an illegal invasion and occupation, it is our belief that the US is being so vague about Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi because the US directly and indirectly, supported their invasion and occupation and continues to do so. It is our belief that the US did not like the government of Laurent Kabila, and wanted it changed. Now that the change has been made, the US is protecting its allies, Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi, from accountability, and thereby protecting itself from the same. This strategy will not work. The US and Britain have punished and continue to punish Irak, the US punished Germany and Japan. The US goal here should be to punish Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. They invaded, they occupied, and under their administration of illegally occupied territories of Congo, millions of innocents have died. No Mr ambassador, The time has come to punish and apportion blame.”
So let me take this opportunity to call upon all the representatives of the media here present to go and drum up Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi and their backers’accountability for their illegal and criminal involvement in the Congo.
The ongoing tragedy in Congo has shown that human rights, democracy, UN and OAU charters in Africa are just empty creeds. They are defined in as far as they serve the interest of the superpowers.
The late Congolese President Laurent Désiré Kabila did not meet the expectations of those interests although they brought him to power but he had a nationalist agenda: To end the humiliation of his people after 37 years of the worst dictatorship in Africa, backed by Western interests - I mean Mobutu’s – so that the people of Congo can be once more masters of their own destiny and the prime beneficiaries of their own natural resources.
The following sums up what Kabila was all about: During the third summit of Comesa that is the Common Market Community of Central and Southern African Countries) which he convened in Kinshasa on 29 June 1998, Kabila clearly tabled out what role Congo would play within the common market and in Africa as a whole. He explained that ‘more than 40 years of African independence have offered to the world a sad spectacle of a continent looted and humiliated with the complicity of its own sons and daughters’. He expressed the wish ‘to see Africa entering the 21st century totally independent of foreign interference’ and declared that the battle for Congo’s independence and sovereignty is fought in the interest of Africa as a whole.
“Our country,” he said, “has a vocation of exporting peace, development and security to the rest of Africa. A weak Congo means a vulnerable Africa from its centre, an Africa without a heart.” Congo indeed is usually called as the heart of Africa. The stakes were then raised!
The price for Kabila’s head was 30 million US dollars! This is according to the Belgian weekly Le Solidaire in its edition of the 9th May 2001.
With Joseph Kabila, the struggle for Congo’s political and economic independence goes on. We will never cease to exist as a people however much the powers that be want to wipe us out. We have never done anything wrong to anybody. We the people of Congo, solemnly re-affirm our sovereignty, our unity within the boundaries of the territory that we inherited from our forefathers and freely aspire to peace, concord, democracy, development and a fair and mature cooperation with other nations. Our country is not just a heap of minerals and other natural resources, but a living space granted by God to us since the time of our ancestors.
Antoine Roger Lokongo
Congolese journalist
London SW2
Read for yourselves: American involvement in Congo: An open secret
Colette Braeckman, a journaliste with the Belgian daily Le Soir and an expert on the Great Lakes Region affairs, in her book L’enjeu Congolais, L’Afrique Centrale Après Mobutu, confirmed the American involvement and backing of the Rwandan-Ugandan-Burundian military coalition which launched an invasion and aggression against the Democratic Republic of Congo on 2 August 2001.
She writes: “Americans commandos trained hundreds of Ugandan troops of the Nguruma battalion prior to the invasion and who later fought besides Rwandan troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo.”
Braeckman further reveals: “An aerial bridge was quickly established between the eastern Congolese city of Goma (the chief-city of North Kivu province) and the military base of Kitona, 2.500km away in the western Congo, near the Atlantic ocean.
“Every night, a Russian jet fighter (Iliouchine) and a Boeing 727 made rotations between Goma and Kitona, landing some 8.500 troops as well as military equipment, food supplies and even four brand new armoured vehicles. This whole operation was mounted and supervised by 200 Black American Special Forces who had previously settled in the small island of Idjwi on the Lake Kivu. The 200 Black marines were manning communication equipment for the invading troops.
“In addition, two US plane-carrier warships with some 3.500 troops on board had already sailed at the western Congolese port of Banana and were not only supervising all the radio communication of the aerial bridge but also monitoring and intercepting counter-offensive orders given from Kinshasa.”
Colette Braeckman, L’enjeu Congolais, L’Afrique Centrale Après Mobutu (The Congolese stake, Central Africa after Mobutu), Edition Fayard, Paris, 1999, p. 353 –354.
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