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SPECIAL REPORTS
IN THE 19TH CENTURY, MISSIONARIES LIKE ROCK STARS TODAY SAID EXACTLY THE SAME THING. THEY ORGANISED RALLIES TO RAISE AWARENESS ABOUT THE NECESSITY OF ENDING POVERTY IN AFRICA, ENDING DARKNESS BY BRINGING CIVILISATION AND THE LIGHT OF THE GOSPEL TO POOR AND PAGAN AFRICAN PEOPLE.
WHAT HAPPENED AFTERWRADS? WE BECAME COLONIES, OUR LAND TAKEN FROM US AND OUR NATURAL AND MINERAL RESOURCES LOOTED AND TAKEN TO THE WEST.
SOMETIMES NOBLES HUMANITARIAN INTENTIONS HIDE, DISGUISE AND MASK SOMETHING ELSE. HISTORY IS A CONSTANT GUIDE TO US ALL! AND MULTINATIONALS HAVE NOT SPONSORED LIVE 8 CONCERTS FOR NOTHING!
The legacy of Dr. Walter Rodney who was assassinated in Guyana 25 years ago by government agents. Following on from the recent two-week commemoration of his life and work in Guyana a motion was approved in the Guyanese parliament to conduct a full investigation into the circumstances of his death. His seminal work, “How
Europe Underdeveloped Africa” should be the first port of call for anyone interested in aid, trade, debt or remittances to Afrika.
“What we need is confidence in ourselves, so that as blacks and Africans we can become conscious, united, independent and creative. A knowledge of African achievements in art, education, religion, politics, agriculture and the mining of metals can help us gain the necessary confidence which has been removed by slavery and colonialism.’ - Walter Rodney: The Groundings with my Brothers
“Ultimately, it is of course the African people who will determine what happens on the African continent and not the extent and nature of the liberation support. It should be clear to those outside Africa that the tremendous upsurge of interest in Southern Africa over the last three or four years has been the consequences of people there.”
- Walter Rodney: Support for the Liberation Struggles in Southern Africa.
NO ANSWERS TO POVERTY
(Morning Star Saturday 02 July 2005)
JOHN PILGER, Britain's leading campaigning journalist
JOHN PILGER explains why this weekend's crusade is a complete fraud.
THE front page of the Observer on June 12 announced: "55 billion dollar Africa debt deal 'a victory for millions'." The "victory for millions" is a quotation of Bob Geldof, who said: "Tomorrow, 280 million Africans will wake up for the first time in their lives without owing you or me a penny."
The nonsense of this would be breathtaking if the reader's breath had not already been extracted by the unrelenting sophistry of Geldof, Bono, Blair, the Observer et al.
Africa's imperial plunder and tragedy have been turned into a circus for the benefit of the so-called G8 leaders due in Scotland next month and those of us willing to be distracted by the barkers of the circus - the Establishment media and its "celebrities."
The illusion of an anti-Establishment crusade led by pop stars - a cultivated, controlling image of rebellion - serves to dilute a great political movement of anger.
In summit after summit, not a single significant "promise" of the G8 has been kept and the "victory for millions" is no different.
It is a fraud - actually, a setback to reducing poverty in Africa. Entirely conditional on vicious, discredited economic programmes imposed by the World Bank and the IMF, the "package" will ensure that the "chosen" countries slip deeper into poverty.
Is it any surprise that this is backed by Blair, his treasurer Gordon Brown and George Bush? Even the White House calls it a "milestone."
For them, it is an important facade, held up by the famous and the naive and the inane. Having effused about Blair, Geldof describes Bush as "passionate and sincere" about ending poverty.
Bono has called Blair and Brown "the John and Paul of the global development stage." Behind this front, rapacious power can "reorder" the lives of millions in favour of totalitarian corporations and their control of the world's resources.
There is no conspiracy - the goal is no secret. Gordon Brown spells it out in speech after speech, which liberal journalists choose to ignore, preferring the Treasury-spun version.
‘Blair’s vision for Africa is as patronising and exploitative as a stage full of white pop stars'
The G8 communique announcing the "victory for millions" is unequivocal. Under a section headed "G8 proposals for HIPC debt cancellation," it says that debt relief to poor countries will be granted only if they are shown "adjusting their gross assistance flows by the amount given" - in other words, their aid will be reduced by the same amount as the debt relief. So they gain nothing.
Paragraph two states that "it is essential" that poor countries "boost private-sector development" and ensure "the elimination of impediments to private investment, both domestic and foreign."
The "$55 billion" claimed by the Observer comes down, at most, to $1 billion spread over 18 countries. This will almost certainly be halved - providing less than six days worth of debt payments - because Blair and Brown want the IMF to pay its share of the "relief" by revaluing its vast stock of gold and passionate and sincere Bush has said No.
The first unmentionable is that the gold was originally plundered from Africa. The second unmentionable is that debt payments are due to rise sharply from next year, more than doubling by 2015. This will mean not "victory for millions," but death for millions.
At present, for every $1 of "aid" to Africa, $3 are taken out by Western banks, institutions and governments - and that does not account for the repatriated profit of transnational corporations.
Take the Congo. Thirty-two corporations, all of them based in G8 countries, dominate the exploitation of this deeply impoverished, mineral-rich country, where millions have died in the "cause" of 200 years of imperialism.
In the Ivory Coast, three G8 companies control 95 per cent of the processing and export of cocoa, the main resource.
The profits of Unilever, a British company long in Africa, are a third larger than Mozambique's GDP. One US company, Monsanto - of genetic engineering notoriety - controls 52 per cent of the maize seed in South Africa, that country's staple food.
Blair could not give two flying faeces for the people of Africa. Ian Taylor at the University of St Andrews used the Freedom of Information Act to learn that, while Blair was declaiming his desire to "make poverty history," he was secretly cutting the government's Africa desk officers and staff.
‘Protesters going to the G8 summit ought not to allow themselves to be distracted by these games.’
At the same time, his "Department for International Development" was forcing, by the back door, privatisation of water supply in Ghana for the benefit of British investors.
This ministry lives by the dictates of its "Business Partnership Unit," which is devoted to finding "ways in which DfID can improve the enabling environment for productive investment overseas and... contribute to the operation of the financial sector."
Poverty reduction? Of course not. A charade promotes the modern imperial ideology known as neoliberalism, yet it is almost never reported that way and the connections are seldom made.
In the issue of the Observer announcing "victory for millions" was a secondary news item that British arms sales to Africa had passed £1 billion.
One British arms client is Malawi, which pays out more on the interest on its debt than its entire health budget despite the fact that 15 per cent of its population has HIV.
Gordon Brown likes to use Malawi as example of why "we should make poverty history," yet Malawi will not receive a penny of the "victory for millions" relief.
The charade is a gift for Blair, who will try anything to persuade the public to "move on" from the third unmentionable - his part in the greatest political scandal of the modern era, his crime in Iraq.
Although essentially an opportunist, as his lying demonstrates, he presents himself as a Kiplingesque imperialist.
His "vision for Africa" is as patronising and exploitative as a stage full of white pop stars - with black tokens now added.
His messianic references to "shaking the kaleidoscope" of societies about which he understands little and "watching the pieces fall" has translated into seven violent interventions abroad, more than any British prime minister for half a century.
Bob Geldof, an Irishman at his court, duly knighted, says nothing about this.
The protesters going to the G8 summit at Gleneagles ought not to allow themselves to be distracted by these games.
If inspiration is needed, along with evidence that direct action can work, they should look to Latin America's mighty popular movements against total locura capitalista (total capitalist folly).
They should look to Bolivia, the poorest country in Latin America, where an indigenous movement has Blair's and Bush's corporate friends on the run, and Venezuela, the only country in the world where oil revenue has been diverted for the benefit of the majority, and Uruguay and Argentina, Ecuador and Peru, and Brazil's great landless people's movement.
Across the continent, ordinary people are standing up to the old Washington-sponsored order. "Que se vayan todos!" (Out with them all!) say the crowds in the streets.
Much of the propaganda that passes for news in our own society is given to immobilising and pacifying people and diverting them from the idea that they can confront power.
The current babble about Europe, of which no reporter makes sense, is part of this, yet the French and Dutch No votes are part of the same movement as in Latin America, returning democracy to its true home - that of power accountable to the people, not to the "free market" or the war policies of rampant bullies. And this is just a beginning.
This article appeared in the New Statesman
CHANGE LONG OVERDUE
(Morning Star Saturday 02 July 2005)
GEORGE GALLOWAY, Leader of the Respect Party
GEORGE GALLOWAY pinpoints why it is vital to get along to Gleneagles this weekend.
SOME of the most dangerous men in the world are in Gleneagles Hotel next week. They are responsible not only for the renewed and terrifying drive to war that characterises the start of the 21st century.
They also preside over a system that is itself the biggest killer in the world.
The only way to make poverty history is to make the G8 history. I don't mean simply the annual jamboree for the leaders of the world's richest and most powerful states. I mean the whole nexus of exploitation and privilege that the G8 and its attendant institutions represent.
Why does a child in Africa die every three seconds of preventable causes? Because, quite simply, they are poor.
And they are poor because a tiny number of people standing at the head of the multinational corporations that bestraddle the globe are obscenely rich.
We assemble in Edinburgh, London and many other places today to make poverty history. But it's not enough.
You can't get slim by eating low-fat chocolate - it has to be part of a calorie-controlled diet. You can't make poverty history by writing off some of the debt of some of the countries in Africa and pretending you have made up for centuries of imperialism, exploitation and injustice.
Most countries in Africa are not included in the limited debt reduction plan. Those that are are told they will have to privatise and turn further towards the neoliberal policies that are impoverishing them if they are to qualify.
They are told to place their faith in free trade. But, if free trade were so good, why didn't Britain, the US, Germany or any other advanced country practise it when they industrialised? Free trade is the cry to those who have already grown strong by protecting their own industries.
'How are Tesco's profits so huge? Through the exploitation of workers.'
And, of course, most of the world's poor don't live in Africa. More than half the world lives on less than $2 a day.
What does this mean in real human terms? I went to Bangladesh this year and visited a sweatshop. There were hundreds of mainly girls of 15 and 16 sleeping in quadruple bunk beds in the sweatshop compound.
They work from 6am to 7pm, six days a week, for 60p a day. Most of them do not leave the compound. They make jeans for Tesco. They made hundreds of pairs every day for Tesco, which made £2 billion profit last year selling things that other people make.
How are their profits that huge? Through the exploitation of workers in Britain, the exploitation of suppliers at the lowest margin and the exploitation of workers abroad, such as in the sweatshops of Bangladesh.
Poverty at home and poverty abroad are connected. The hard-pressed worker in a Tesco supermarket or depot, deprived of the right to sick pay, may not be on the edge of starvation, but they share a common bond with the girl in the sweatshop in Bangladesh.
A system that exists on the exploitation of others must be improvable, but the G8 leaders, just like the Tesco bosses, have no interest in doing that.
In fact, shoring up their power means turning to more direct methods of killing people - war. We are unlucky to live under two of the worst leaders in the world - the messianic, fundamentalist Tony Blair and George Bush. But that isn't the reason for war. War comes from capitalism. There are five Arabian Gulf countries with 550 years of oil, which is very important to US. It has 4 per cent of the world's population but consumes 25 per cent of its energy.
In the old days, you had plain, naked imperialism. We went in and took everything we could carry. In Africa, we took people too, in holds of ships, to become slaves.
Then there came a time when the colonies said: "We want to become independent and free." Now, we are returning to colonies that we were driven out of. But this, in turn, is generating a new liberation movement for the 21st century - the movement against corporate globalisation and war that has erupted over the last five years. It is thanks to its mobilisations that the G8 leaders are paying even lip service to the issue of world poverty. There are those in and around new Labour who are seeking over the next few days to derail that movement. They want to blunt its radical edge, to get it off the streets, to replace its popular involvement and democracy with a few handpicked unaccountable figures begging for crumbs on behalf of the mass of the world's poor. That way lies disaster. Nothing good has ever come from supplicating the likes of Bush and Blair.
Confronted with just such pressure to demobilise and compromise at the key moment of the black civil rights movement in the US, Martin Luther King said that it was vital to "keep the movement moving."
We must do that this week in Edinburgh and outside Gleneagles on Wednesday. And, while new Labour spins paltry measures as historic steps forward, we should keep our eyes on the prize.
UK gunrunners fuelling killings, mass rape and torture I Democratic Republic of Congo
Large quantities of weapons and ammunition from the Balkans and eastern Europe have been flown by UK-based firms into Africa’s conflict-ridden Great Lakes region, despite evidence of their use in gross human rights violations, according to new research issued on 5 July 2005.
According to documents and witness statements obtained by Amnesty International, six flights of arms from Albanian company MEICO, took place from Tirana to Kigali in planeloads each carrying over 40 metric tones of arms and ammunition in October/November 2002.
This included several million rounds of Kalashnikov ammunition. At least one shipment contained grenades and rocket launchers. Amnesty International has found that three of the companies involved in these arms deliveries operated from the UK: African International Airways (Crawley, West Sussex) Intavia Ltd (Crawley and Gatwick), and Platinum Air Cargo (Egham, Surrey)
The shipments from south east Europe have continued to Rwanda using other cargo companies despite a peace process initiated in 2002, a United Nations arms embargo and Rwandan backing of DRC rebels. At the same time, further arms supplies flowed into the eastern DRC from agents close to the Kinshasa and Uganda governments.
Amnesty International’s report, Democratic Republic of Congo: Arming the east, reveals the role played by arms dealers, brokers and transporters from countries including Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, Israel, Russia, Serbia, South Africa, the UK and USA.
It traces the supply of weapons and ammunition to the governments of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda and their subsequent distribution to armed groups and militia in the eastern DRC that have been involved in atrocities amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Amnesty International UK Media Director Mike Blakemore said:
"Millions have already lost their lives during seven years of conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Armed men are still raping, looting and killing civilians - as arms deliveries continue.
"If the international community, the UN and individual countries involved fail to halt this proliferation, the fragile peace process will collapse with disastrous consequences."
"Evidence that UK-based firms have profited from these deals is sickening. The UK government should ensure that a full, independent and public investigation takes place, with all documentation made public."
The new report documents evidence that during the entire peace process in the DRC, military aid has been provided from agents close to the Rwanda, Uganda and the DRC governments to armed groups and militia in eastern DRC.
The report also provides evidence of the continuing role of Russian arms trafficker Victor Bout and his close associates, using local operators, who have secretly armed all sides in the DRC conflict.
Amnesty International is calling on the United Nations Security Council to renew and strengthen the UN embargo on arms exports to the DRC and impose severe restrictions or embargoes on any state found to be exporting arms to armed groups or militia in the DRC.
The Council must ensure that all airports in the eastern DRC are monitored by specialised UN inspectors 24 hours a day, and that all aircraft found carrying illegal arms cargoes are grounded. The organisation is also calling on all states to ensure that violations of the UN arms embargoes are made a serious criminal offence and to investigate all credible reports of illegal arms transfers. Supplier states named in the report should investigate whether any laws have been broken and if their arms export systems are sufficiently strict and consistent with international law. Amnesty International is calling for an Arms Trade Treaty to strictly control the transfer of all conventional arms and prevent them being used for grave human rights abuses.
Other military aid and arms transfers documented in the report include: Rwanda. Up to 400 tonnes of mostly surplus Kalashnikov ammunition shipped from Albania and Serbia to Rwanda with the involvement of Israeli, Rwandan, South African and UK companies between the end of 2002 and mid 2003, followed by more flights from eastern Europe in mid-2004;
A further order for 130 tonnes of surplus arms and ammunition from Bosnia approved by the US government in November 2004 against the backdrop of new US military aid agreements for Rwanda; Ongoing military support by Rwanda to armed groups in the DRC, particularly the RCD-Goma, linked to exploitation of the country’s natural resources.
DRC: The existence of arms-for-diamonds agreements involving the DRC government and companies in the Czech Republic, Israel and the Ukraine; Evidence in 2004 of an arms trafficking network linking the DRC and Liberia involving international cargo companies;
The transfer of over 200 tons of arms to a pro-government armed group in north Kivu by a local company using aircraft from a South African firm supplying UN peacekeepers in 2003.
Uganda: The Ugandan government’s failure to report to the UN imports of weapons and ammunition from Croatia and Slovakia worth over US$ 1million in 2002; Donations of military vehicles from Chin in 2002 and attempts by the Ugandan government to import more arms from Israel in 2003; Evidence that the Ugandan military authorities repeatedly supplied arms, ammunition and military support to armed opposition groups in the eastern DRC in 2003 and 2004, especially to groups controlling DRC gold mining areas and trade routes.
Mike Blakemore said:
"International arms flows into the region have been channelled by powerful agents close to the governments of the DRC, Rwanda, and Uganda to various armed groups and militia in eastern DRC who practise banditry and show little or no respect for human rights."
I. BOB GELDOF AND HIS “COOL BRITANNIA SAVE THE WAIFS LIVE 8 RALLY AGAINT POVERTY CONCERT” IS A GIANT LAKE SPRINGING FROM SEVERAL CROCODILES’ TEARS IF NOT “A SPIN ON POVERTY”
*** Now we get it! To save Africa, you don't involve Africans who, themselves, are at the receiving end of the very exploitation, we are denouncing, and the best medium to highlight Africa's plight is white music!
***Giving money to a charity to help "poor Africans" is a feel good factor for many, even if the givers are often shareholders in the very multinational companies which are exploiting Africa!
***When brutal dictators squeeze their countries dry, looting all their people's money and wealth and putting it in London and Swiss banks, nobody raises a finger to protest against such a state of affairs. But When African people suffer from hunger, diseases, and poverty, that is blamed on the very debts contracted by the same dictators and "doubling aid" is envisaged as a remedy!
***Why not just send back the stolen money needed to build roads, hospitals, industrial infrastructures, feed the hungry, and so on, in order that Africa may no longer need spoon feeding-like aid, and stop selling arms to "African conflict prone countries"?
***Is it not because that money keeps the system going in the North? LET US SERIOUSLY THINK ABOUT THESE ISSUES! May be Africa needs a moratorium from foreign interference, as you will SOON read below!
Poor people in Africa – and this is the label that has stuck with them for donkey years- first heard of Irish singer Bob Geldof in 1985, when he first launched the first Live Aid Concert as part of the campaign to combat famine in Ethiopia.
That event was "almost perfect in what it achieved", Geldof said.
But the situation in Africa has not improved.
There is now, they say, a "unique opportunity" to permanently solve the problem: “This year, the year of the UN special summit, as well as Britain's presidency of the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, is a unique chance to reverse the fortunes of a continent and it's an opportunity to transform the lives of millions, as Chancellor Gordon Brown put it. This, notwithstanding the fact that the UK government, upon which the definite salvation of Africa is supposed to come from this time is, however, in cahoot with big businesses (multinationals).
Free New Live Aid concerts under the Live 8 banner are happening in London, Philadelphia, Rome, Paris and Berlin ahead of the G8 summit in July - 20 years after the original Live Aid and weeks after organiser Bob Geldof said another one would happen "over my dead body". The G8 gathering gives him the perfect opportunity to step up the pressure to get those plans put into action.
But it also gives an opportunity for predominantly white performers to enjoy a field day.
So much so that London-based group Black Information Link has called the Live 8 London concert "hideously white" for not having enough black performers. Superstar Mariah Carey is almost the only ethnic minority performer at Hyde Park on 2 July, one of five global Live 8 concerts that day. Black Information Link said organisers had "handpicked a virtually all-white line-up".
The following EDITORIAL by Brother Kubara, editor of Afrikan Quest and NUBIART is more too the point:
"Having just watched the first part of ‘Geldof in Africa’ on the BBC Afrikan Quest has taken the position that it will not endorse or financially support any venture initiated by this man or his cronies. Give your money direct to an Afrikan individual or enterprise and bypass this farce.
Over time it has become clear that Geldof is using Afrika as a backdrop to his own self aggrandisement and continuing to perpetuate a false history of Afrika. In tonight’s show he started with all the usual clichés and “Heart of Darkness” * references putting forward the lie that Afrika was incapable of having advanced civilizations.
Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ referred to what was inside the European “adventurers” and was applied to Afrika by people who misread the book.
He seems to forget Kemet, Kush, Meroe, Axum, Numidia, Punt, Mono Matapa, the Songhai / Mali Kongo, Luba, empires, etc (and all the Afrikan scientists and inventors many of whom were robbed of their patents). He‘s probably one of those old colonials that still can’t accept that Egypt is in Afrika yet some Ghanaians have made him a Nana (Royalty).
Why the BBC has commissioned another white man to make a six-part show about Afrika as part of a season called ‘Africa Lives’ is beyond me. Could the BBC find no Afrikan to talk authoritatively about Afrika? Or is this Africa 05 lark another way of looking at Afrika through the European gaze?
We don’t think Bob Geldof needs the money. He has a new book out. His company has increased profits by nearly 400% in the last year on an income which increased by 117%. They were given a contract by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (funders of the BBC World Service). His Live 8 event which he decided to put on after seeing Afrika become a hot topic has been granted tax exemption by the UK government. This bandwagon for him and his has-been rock friends is now being called ‘Rock Aid’ as it is a way for them to globalise their careers and move Black performers from the spotlight as revealed in his remark about he didn’t think any Afrikan performers could hold a crowd. How stupid when many of them play football stadiums in Afrika on a regular basis."
As if that is not enough, mobile phone operator O2 is poised to cash in as throughout 2005, MakePovertyHistory will be asking members of the public to join the campaign by texting coordinated messages to Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and others. If you send a text to '80205' in response to one of its requests, you agree to accept the following terms:
- The text message you send costs 25p.
- When you send a text message, your text message and your originating mobile number will be revealed to us. We will store your number so we can text you updates about the campaign - there will be no more than 5 of these between your sign-up and the end of 2005.
- There is absolutely no charge to you for receiving these further messages.
- Comic Relief operates the texting service on behalf of the MakePovertyHistory coalition.
- Comic Relief's mobile marketing partner Flytxt will keep your information secure and will not pass it to anyone else. Your information will be deleted at the end of the 2005 when the campaign ends. Please see 'Submitting your Personal Information', in our Terms and Conditions, for further details.
Bob Geldof is right in pointing out that more people die of hunger every year in Africa than die of Aids, TB, malaria, polio and conflict combined. European governments give poor person in Africa 0.65 euros (£0.44) a year each compared with 848 euros (£572) for every surplus cow, he told reporters. But the surplus, the opulence, the plenty the West enjoys comes mostly come from Africa.
And no “do-gooders” , “aid pushers”, “NGOs”, whatever, can ever divert us from the plain truth that “more than fourty years of African independence [after slavery and colonialism] have offered to the world a sad spectacle of a continent looted and humiliated with the complicity of Africa’s own sons and daughters, those puppets of neo-imperialism and neo-colonialism”, (like most of the members of Tony Blair’s Commission fro Africa), as the late President Laurent Désiré Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo often used to say.
Bob Geldof who enjoys rubbing shoulders with the greatest of this world, rather like a joker in a king’s palace, knows only too well that:
- British multinationals are involved in the raping and the looting of Africa, especially in the Democratic Republic of Congo, without being investigated.
- After arming Rwanda and Uganda to invade Congo, killing 5 million Congolese and looting Congo's natural and mineral resources, especially coltan for mobile phones. AND WE HAVE NEVER HEARD BOB GELDOF CONDEMN THE GENOCIDE AND THE ILLEGAL LOOTING, THE PILLAGING AND THE PLUNDER OF CONGO!
AND NOW THAT PAUL KAGAME THE LITTLE HITLER GROOMED BY THE BRITISH AND THE AMERICANS IS AMASSING TROOPS IN EASTERN CONGO, LET HEAR BOB GELDOF CONDEMN YET ANOTHER LOOMING INVASION BY BRITAIN AND AMERICAN USING RWANDAN AND UGANDAN TROOPS IN ORDER TO LOOT CONGO’S NATURAL AND MINERAL RESOURCES.
Most of Africa’s “problems” (except natural calamities) are orchestrated, planned, and financed by the West and implemented by “African hands”. Otherwise, Africa does not need help. Africa has everything. It is other people that need Africa’s natural, mineral and human resources. Yet Africa is the poorest continent in the world. How come? From the time of slavery, colonialism and white settlement, Africa has never been left alone. What Africa needs is to be left alone so that it can charter its own independent path and deal with the rest of the world only in its own terms.
The late President Laurent Désiré Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo, said Africa’s salvation lied in theree principles or values:
1. We must rely on our own efforts
2. Yes to auto-determination. No to blind allegiance to foreigners
3. Never to betray Congo
These three principles or values have nothing to do with communism, capitalism, brief, all the isms. These are the tree principles that have made strong nations (superpowers) what they are today.
II.THE OTHER SIDE OF "PROGRESS"
since 2.08.1998, more than five million people have been massacred in a silent genocide in the Democratic Republic of Congo, yet the world is silent. Why?
Rwandan, Ugandan and Burundian troops with the complicity of some Congolese and so-called Rwandan-Congolese rebel puppets, who carried out this genocide as proxies of Britain and America and western multinationals in order to plunder Congo's tremendous natural and mineral resources, the mineral coltan.
Coltan, short for Columbite-tantalite is a metallic ore comprising Niobium and Tantalum, found mainly in the eastern regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo (formally Zaire). When refined, coltan becomes a heat resistant powder, metallic tantalum which has unique properties for storing electrical charge. Of the 525 tons of tantalum used in the USA in 1998, 60% was used in tantalum capacitors, with a predicted growth rate of 14% per annum.
It is therefore a vital component in the capacitors that control current flow in cell phone circuit boards, Ipods, giant computers, latest weapons, satellites, playstations, pagers, camcorders, laptops… brief all the gadgets in the hands of young people in the West, everything high-tech today. CONGO KEEPS THE WORLD GOING, BASICALLY!
Mining Coltan
Coltan is mined by hand in the Congo by groups of men digging basins in streams by scrapping off the surface mud. They then "slosh" the water around the crater, which causes the Coltan ore to settle to the bottom of the crater where it is retrieved by the miners. A team can mine one kilo of Coltan per day.The tech boom caused the price of Coltan to rocket to as high as US$600 per kilogram at one point, compared to a previous value of US$65 per kilogram, although it has settled down to around US$100 per kilogram at the moment. A Coltan miner can earn as much as US$200 per month, compared to a typical salary of US$10 per month for the average Congolese worker.
80% of the world's known coltan supply is in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which the UN says is subject to "highly organised and systematic exploitation".
Coltan financing war
A recent report by the UN has claimed that all the parties involved in what has been dubbed as "Africa's First World War" on the Congolese soil, have been involved in the mining and sale of Coltan.
One report suggested that the neighboring Rwandan army made US$250 million from selling Coltan in less than 18 months, despite there being no Coltan in Rwanda to mine. The military forces of Uganda and Burundi are also implicated in smuggling Coltan out of Congo for resale in Belgium.
A report to the United Nations security council has called for a moratorium on purchase and import of resources from the Democratic Republic of Congo, due to the ongoing civil war that has dragged in the surrounding countries.
Coltan and Gorillas
The main area where Coltan is mined, also contains the Kahuzi Biega National Park, home of the Mountain Gorilla. In Kahuzi Biega National Park the gorilla population has been cut nearly in half, from 258 to 130 as the ground is cleared to make mining easier. Not only has this reduced the available food for the Gorillas, the poverty caused by the displacement of the local populations by the miners has lead to Gorillas being killed and their meat being sold as "bush meat" to the miners and rebel armies that control the area. Within the Dem. Rep.of Congo as a whole, the U.N. Environment Program has reported that the number of eastern lowland gorillas in eight Dem. Rep. of Congo national parks has declined by 90% over the past 5 years, and only 3,000 now remain.
Due to the damage caused to the Gorilla population and their natural habitat, companies that use Coltan are now starting to demand that their Coltan only comes from legitimately mined sources and is not a byproduct of the war. American-based Kemet, the world's largest maker of tantalum capacitors, has asked its suppliers to certify that their coltan ore does not come from Dem. Rep. of Congo or from neighbouring countries. Such moves could lead to "Gorilla Safe"; cellphones being marketed, much in the same way that Tuna meat is now sold as "Dolphin Safe".
Other sources
There are few alternative sources of Coltan apart from the Dem. Rep. of Congo, although the University of St Andrews geologist, Dr Adrian Finch recently reported that he has found Coltan inside extinct volcanoes in the remote North Motzfeldt region of Greenland. Dr Finch has now received a two year funding plan from the Carnegie Trust and Gino Watkins Fund to investigate the commercial viability of mining the volcanoes.
There is very little the "man on the street" can do to prevent Coltan exploitation as it is not a "visible" component of cellphones that can be differentiated when shopping, but continuing pressure on circuit board manufacturers has lead to many demanding that their Coltan supplies only come from legitimate sources. Similar pressure on other users of Coltan can also help to ensure that only legitimately mined and sold Coltan is used in circuit boards. At a government level, pressure on local politicians to drive awareness of the ongoing civil war in the Dem. Rep. of Congo and help to secure a resolution will help to prevent the extinction of the Mountain Gorilla.
The Tantalum-Niobium International Study Center (T.I.C.), the industry organisation representing producers, processors and consumers of tantalum and niobium around the world, said that it deplores the reported activities of illegal miners in the Kahuzi-Biega National Park and the Okapi Wildlife Reserve in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
It was agreed at the T.I.C. Executive Committee meeting in Brussels on April 3rd 2001 that the organisation would take a stand regarding the use and production of coltan mined in these World Heritage Sites.
SPECIAL REPORTS:
III. Democratic Republic of Congo: Gold Fuels Massive Human Rights Atrocities
Human Rights Watch (Washington, DC), June 2, 2005
Leading international corporations established links to warlords
The lure of gold has fuelled massive human rights atrocities in the northeastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Human Rights Watch said in a new report published today.
Local warlords and international companies are among those benefiting from access to gold rich areas while local people suffer from ethnic slaughter, torture and rape.
The 159-page report, 'The Curse of Gold,' [pdf] documents how local armed groups fighting for the control of gold mines and trading routes have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity using the profits from gold to fund their activities and buy weapons.
The report provides details of how a leading gold mining company, AngloGold Ashanti, part of the international mining conglomerate Anglo American, developed links with one murderous armed group, the Nationalist and Integrationist Front (FNI), helping them to access the gold-rich mining site around the town of Mongbwalu in the northeastern Ituri district.
The Human Rights Watch report also illustrates the trail of tainted gold from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to neighboring Uganda from where it is sent to global gold markets in Europe and elsewhere. The report documents how a leading Swiss gold refining company, Metalor Technologies, previously bought gold from Uganda. After discussions and correspondence with Human Rights Watch beginning in December 2004, and after the report had gone to press, the company announced on May 20 that it would suspend its purchases of gold from Uganda. The Metalor statement was welcomed by Human Rights Watch.
“Corporations should ensure their activities support peace and respect for human rights in volatile areas such as northeastern Congo, not work against them,” said Anneke Van Woudenberg, senior researcher on DRC at Human Rights Watch. “Local warlords use natural resources to support their bloody activities. Any support for such groups, whether direct or indirect, must not continue.”
In contravention of international business standards and the company’s own code of conduct, AngloGold Ashanti provided meaningful financial and logistical support – which in turn resulted in political benefits - to the FNI and its leaders, a group responsible for some of the worst atrocities in this war-torn region. In correspondence with Human Rights Watch, AngloGold Ashanti stated there was no “working or other relationship with the FNI” but it said that it had made certain payments in the past to the FNI, including one in January 2005 that was made under “protest and duress.” AngloGold Ashanti also said that any contacts with the FNI leadership were “unavoidable.”
Human Rights Watch researchers documented meetings between the company and the armed group leaders. The self-styled president of the FNI, Floribert Njabu, told Human Rights Watch, “The government is never going to come to Mongbwalu. I am the one who gave [AngloGold] Ashanti permission to come. I am the boss of Mongbwalu. If I want to chase them away, I will.”
AngloGold Ashanti started preparations for gold exploration activities in Mongbwalu in late 2003. The company won the mining rights to the vast gold concession in 1996 but, hampered by the ongoing war, postponed activities there until a peace agreement was signed and a transitional government was established in Kinshasa. The central government failed to establish control of Ituri, however, and the areas around Mongbwalu remained in the hands of the FNI armed group.
“As a company committed to corporate social responsibility, AngloGold Ashanti should have waited until it could work in Mongbwalu without having to interact with abusive warlords,” said Van Woudenberg. “Congo desperately needs business investment to help rebuild the country, but such business engagement must not provide any support to armed groups responsible for crimes against humanity.”
From 1 – 3 June, Anglo American is co-chairing the Africa Economic Summit in Cape Town, aimed at promoting business investment and engaging business as a catalyst for change in Africa.
The gold concessions of northeastern Congo, some of the richest in Africa, could help to rebuild Congo’s shattered economy. But according to Human Rights Watch researchers, fighting between armed groups for the control of the gold mining town of Mongbwalu cost the lives of at least two thousand civilians between June 2002 and September 2004. One miner told Human Rights Watch: “We are cursed because of our gold. All we do is suffer. There is no benefit to us.”
Throughout the conflict, artisanal mining has continued. Millions of dollars worth of gold are smuggled out of Congo each year some of it destined for Switzerland. The Swiss refining company, Metalor Technologies, bought gold from Uganda. Asked about these purchases by Human Rights Watch on April 21, 2005, Metalor stated it believed “the gold…was of legal origin.” But since Uganda has almost no gold reserves of its own, a significant amount of the gold purchased by the company was almost certainly mined in Congo. In its public statement of May 20, Metalor said it would not accept any further deliveries from Uganda until the company could clarify Uganda’s position and statistics on gold production and export.
“We hope other companies will follow the lead set by Metalor,” said Van Woudenberg. “The problems we have documented are not unique to Congo, nor to one international company. Rules governing corporate behavior must be enforced, otherwise they are meaningless.”
In August 2003, a group of United Nations experts adopted a set of draft human rights business standards, known as the U.N. Norms, which signaled a growing consensus on the need for standards on corporate responsibility, but they have not yet been widely implemented by companies. The international community has also failed to effectively tackle the link between resources exploitation and conflict in Congo, choosing to ignore previous U.N. reports that highlighted the issue.
Northeastern Congo has been one of the worst hit areas during Congo’s devastating five-year war. Competing armed groups carried out ethnic massacres, rape and torture in this mineral-rich corner of Congo. A local conflict between Hema and Lendu ethnic groups allied with national rebel groups and foreign backers, including Uganda and Rwanda, has claimed over 60,000 lives since 1999, according to United Nations estimates. These losses are just one part of an estimated four million civilians dead throughout the Congo, a toll that makes this war more deadly to civilians than any other since World War II.
“Efforts to make peace in Congo risk failure unless the issue of natural resource exploitation and its link to human rights abuses are put at the top of the agenda,” said Van Woudenberg “Congolese citizens deserve to benefit from their gold resources, not be cursed by them.”
Quotes from The Curse of Gold
Witness of atrocities by the UPC armed group in a village near to Mongbwalu:
I saw many people tied up ready to be executed. The UPC said they were going to kill them all. They made the Lendu dig their own graves… [then] they killed the people by hitting them on the head with a sledgehammer.
Witness in Mongbwalu:
When the UPC were in Mongbwalu they sent their gold to Bunia and from there it was sent to Rwanda. In exchange they got weapons. A witness to the burning of Hema women accused of being witches by the FNI armed group:
The strategy was to close them in the house and burn it. They captured the women from the surrounding countryside. They said it was to bring them to talk about peace. They put ten women in a house, tied their hands, closed the doors, and burned the house. This lasted about two weeks, with killing night and day.
A young gold trader tortured for failure to pay taxes to the FNI armed group:
There I spent two days in a hole in the ground covered by sticks. They took me out of the hole to beat me. They tied me over a log and then they took turns hitting me with sticks - on my head, my back, my legs. They said they were going to kill me.
A witness to forced labor:
The FNI combatants come every morning door-to-door. They split up to find young people and they take about sixty of them to the river to find the gold… They are forced to work. If the authorities try to intervene they are beaten.
A victim of torture by General Jerome:
They said the gold was for Commander Jérôme and he needed money to build his house. They said if I didn’t give the money, Jérôme would give the order for me to be killed. On the fifth day Jérôme came with his officers to the prison . . . and pointed his gun at me. He said: “Since the first day, I said I would kill you. I don’t joke. Today it’s the end of your life.” They made me get out of the hole and lie down. Jérôme loaded his revolver and put it to the back of my neck.
Mining engineer in the Durba gold mining region where the Ugandan army had been present:
The Ugandan army were responsible for the destruction of Gorumbwa [gold] mine. They started to mine the pillars. It was disorderly and very widespread. People were killed when the mine eventually collapsed. It was not their country so they didn’t care about the destruction.
A gold trader asked why he worked in the dangerous mines:
“Tell me what choice I have? This is the only way I can make any money. Its about my own survival and that of my family.”
A Congolese government official:
“We just watch our country’s resources drain away with no benefit to the Congolese people.”
Charles Carter, Vice President at AngloGold Ashanti:
The company has made preparations to “commence exploration drilling on the Kimin prospect [OKIMO] in the Ituri region of the DRC…[W]hile this is obviously a tough environment right now, we are looking forward to the opportunity to fully explore the properties we have in the Congo, believing that we now have access to potentially exciting growth prospects in Central Africa."
Local observer to events in the mining regions:
“Njabu [President of the FNI] now has power due to the gold he controls and [the presence of] AngloGold Ashanti. This is his ace and he will use it to get power in Kinshasa.
TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY, PEASE READ THE FOLLOWING REPORT:
IV. KEEPING CONGO BLEEDING:
HOW BRITISH MERCENARIES ARE "FUELLING AFRICA'S FIRST WORLD WAR"
Mercenaries are anonymous, professional, highly paid and they operate as any of the combatants in the scores of wars from which they make their living. And when they fly their cargoes of weapons or troops into yet another bush conflict their primary aim, after getting out alive, is to keep their actions secret.
But their involvement in the war which has devastated the Democratic Republic of Congo since 2.08.1998, has now become an “open secret”.
Please, click here to read on...
II. Since lies are very lucrative in our world today, the 1994 genocide in Rwanda constitute the greatest lie of our time, and the unjust war of invasion and of aggression against the people of the Démocratic Republic of Congo - in which 5 million Congolese have been massacred and Congo's natural and mineral resoources, very much needed for the western high tech driven economy, looted - constitute the greatest crime against humanity of our time!
Simple logic, simple mathematics should enlighten us. Statistics indicate that prior to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, there were about ONE MILLION Tutsi living in "the country of a thousands hills" as Rwanda is otherwise known, beside the majority Hutu and the even more minority Twa (pygmies).
Then after the genocide, we were told that almost ONE MILLION Tutsi perished in that evil crime against humanity which we all condemn.
But if that is the case, how many Tutsis are there left in Rwanda then? It is a matter of Simple logic, simple mathematics!
Can we say that the people who were killed most during the genocide were Hutu, so that the Tutsi from exile may come back and occupy the land that would be left vacant?
Please, see,article:"HOW TO MURDER A MILLION PEOPLE AND GET AWAY WITH IT" in the Articles section of this web site, as well as the dossier on the «Tutsification of power in the Great Lakes Region».
Please allow us to ask such questions, because "where people are afraid to ask questions, there is no democracy".
We Congolese are not xenophobic. We are naturally a peaceful and very warm welcoming people. That is why the missionaries never laboured hard to convert us to christianity. But we now hate Hutu and Tutsi, Rwandans, Ugandans, Burundians...you name it, because whenever they slaughter each other in their respective countries, we end up giving shelter to the refugees, and now we are paying a heavy, heavy price, including a genocide of 5 millions of our own by those we were hospitable to!!!
III. What you need to know about the situation in Ituri province of the Democratic Republic of Congo:
Britain and America have armed Rwandan and Ugandan troops to invade Congo, who in their turn have armed Congolese militia who are hacking people to death, even cooking and eating parts of their bodies in front of their loved ones (cannibalism) and recklessly raping women.
That is because this part of Congo is very fertile, very rich in natural and mineral resources and water (oil, gold, diamond and especially coltan needed in the making of mobile phones, computers, brief, everything high tech today.
Rwanda and Uganda have already poured in their population in parts of eastern Congo, and white farmers kicked out of Southern Africa as well as Jewish Zionist settlers from the Middle East covet the land in eastern Congo, as Colette Braeckman of the Belgian daily Le Soir revealed.
That is why the genocide, the cleansing of native Congolese in eastern Congo is going on unabatted. Meanwhile the whole world is completely silent and the Congolese government, pretty much infiltrated by traitors, is powerless!
V. DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: WHO'S WHO IN ITURI - MILITIA, ORGANISATIONS, LEADERS
Conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) continues despite a peace agreement signed by Congolese parties in April 2003.
Most former rebel groups in other parts of the country were party to the agreement but militia groups in the northeastern district of Ituri were not signatories.
In 2004 seven of the Ituri groups signed a peace agreement with the transitional government, although some failed to disarm by the 1 April deadline set by the UN Mission in the DRC, known as MONUC. Now it seems that the government and its newly integrated army brigades are taking the fight to the militia and their leaders. IRIN looks at who is who among Ituri's militia.
L'Union des patriotes congolais (UPC) - Union of Congolese Patriots:
The UPC, a largely Hema organisation, was formed by Thomas Lubanga. It began operating in Bunia, Ituri District's main town, in July 2001, but only gained importance a year later. Lubanga set up the UPC after splitting from the formerly pro-Ugandan Rassemblement congolais pour la démocratie-Mouvement de libération (RCD-ML) - the Congolese Rally for Democracy-Liberation Movement - where he was a military commander and 'minister' of defence. The UPC is reportedly largely backed by politicians and business interests from the Hema ethnic group - one of the two largest in Ituri - and is divided into the clans of the northern (Gegere) and southern (Banyoro) Hema. The movement and its armed wing, the Front pour la réconciliation et paix - Front for Peace and Reconciliation - took control of most of Bunia before being forced out of the area by the Ugandan army on 6 March 2003. Tension between the UPC and Uganda - its original supporter - arose in late 2002 when the UPC demanded the immediate withdrawal of all remaining Ugandan troops from the DRC. The tension widened into a split on 6 January 2003, when the UPC formed an alliance with the Rwandan-backed RCD-Goma. In March 2003 anti-Lubangists in the UPC defected to Uganda, which was already supporting another Hema militia coalition opposed to Lubanga, the Parti pour l'unité et la sauvegarde de l'intégrité du Congo (PUSIC) - Party for Unity and Safeguarding of the Integrity of Congo.
The UPC refused to sign the Ituri Cessation of Hostilities Agreement reached between rival governments, political, ethnic and militia groups on 14 May 2004.
Thomas Lubanga had been arrested in March 2005, following an investigation into the killing of nine Bangladeshi UN peacekeepers in Ituri. The UPC's secretary-general, John Tinanzabo, was also arrested on 14 April 2005, a day after declaring that the party had officially renounced armed struggle.
The UPC-Kisembo (UPC-K): This faction is led by Floribert Kisembo Bahemuka, who broke away from the Lubanga (UPC-L) group in December 2003. Kisembo had tried to unseat Lubanga but failed when most of the militia remained loyal to his rival. Although UPC-K was considered a minor armed group, Kisembo was appointed a general in the national army in 2005 under the reconciliation process of the Pretoria peace accords. Human Rights Watch has named Kisembo as one of five militia leaders accused of massacres and other serious war crimes in Ituri. The others are Lubanga, Jérôme Kakwavu, Bosco Taganda and Germain Katanga, who were also given generalships in the new unified army.
Le Front des nationalistes et intégrationnistes (FNI) - Nationalist Integrationist Front: The FNI, led by Floribert Ndjabu Ngabu, draws most of its support from the Lendu ethnic group and is based in the Ituri towns of Rethy, some 100 km northeast of Bunia, and Kpandroma, 140 km north of Bunia. The military leader of the movement is Etienne Lona, who was arrested by security services in Kinshasa on 11 March 2005 for his group's alleged involvement in the killing of nine Bangladeshi peacekeepers in Ituri. Nabu was transferred to Makala Prison in Kinshasa.
The Forces armées du peuple Congolais (FAPC) - The People's Armed Forces of Congo: Also known as the Union des congolais pour la démocratie-Forces armées du people congolais - Union of Congolese for Democracy-People's Armed Forces of Congo - headed by Jérôme Kakwavu-Bukande, who broke away from UPC in March 2003. The movement's headquarters is in Aru, some 300 km north of Bunia, from where it mostly controls Aru Territory and the area around Mahagi Territory. FAPC's ethnic composition is mixed, and it has reportedly formed alliances with other militia groups where and when convenient, including the FNI and, later, PUSIC. The FAPC's strength was thought to be around 4,000 fighters, who began surrendering their weapons on 6 March 2005 in Aru, with the aim of integrating into the national army.
Le Parti pour l'unité et la sauvegarde de l'intégrité du congo (PUSIC) - Party for Unityand Safeguarding of the Integrity of Congo: Mandro Panga Kahwa, the former military chief of UPC, formed this Hema party in February 2003 after a dispute over leadership and military support with the UPC leader, Thomas Lubanga. PUSIC is dominated by a southern Hema group living near the Ugandan border and has close ties with the neighbouring country. Officially, PUSIC's leader was Floribert Kisembo but, according to African Security Review, Chief Mandro Panga Kahwa was really in control. Congolese judicial authorities, with the support of the UN peacekeepers of the Ituri Brigade, arrested Kahwa on 9 April 2005. Kahwa, 30, is chief of the Bahema Banywagi region north of Bunia.
One of PUSIC's leaders, Ychali Gonza, was also promoted to general in the national army. PUSIC controls part of the Irumu and Djugu territories and the Lake Albert ports of Tchomia and Kasenyi. On 20 December 2004, PUSIC announced that Kisembo had been dismissed as its chairman in favour of Deo Pimbo, who had been the secretary-general. However, a week later, PUSIC militiamen stated categorically that they still considered Kisembo as their commander.
Forces de resistance patriotiques en Ituri (FRPI)- Patriotic Resistance Front in Ituri:
FRPI, led by Dr Adirodo, is a political party of the Ngiti, one of 18 distinct ethnic groups in Ituri. The party was established in November 2002 and is allied to the Front des nationalistes et integrationnistes (FNI) - Nationalist Integrationist Front - led by Floribert Ndjabu Ngabu. The alliance is aimed at bringing Ngiti militias and traditional leaders together to face the UPC. It supported Uganda's move to drive the UPC from Bunia in March 2003.
Forces populaires pour la democratie au Congo (FPDC) - Popular Force for Democracy in Congo: This is an Alur and Lugbara political party. Its current leader, Thomas Unen Chen, was a former member of parliament in Zaire (as the Democratic Republic of Congo was formerly known). FPDC was formed in 2002, mostly by the Alur and Lugbara ethnic groups in the Aru and Mahagi areas of northern Ituri, with the aim of countering the UPC. The party has reportedly been supported by Uganda as part of the Front pour l'intégration et la paix en Ituri - FIPI (an offshoot of the UPC) coalition.
Sources: Trial Watch http://www.trial-ch.org /trialwatch/profiles/en/facts/p294.html?AN=1 Fewer Africa http://www.fewer.org/ Human Rights Watch http://www.hrw.org/ IRIN http://www.irinnews.org/ MONUC http://www.hrw.org/ Pole Institute http://www.pole-institute.org/site_web/echo06.htm The Lotus Group, Kinshasa.
VI. "WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE AFRICA COMMISSION REPORT – SOME FACTS:
By Dr Tajudeen Abdul Raheem, Secretary General, Global Pan-African Movement.
- Africa is not short of reports from “do-gooders” which lead to no implementation.
Be it Nepad or Commission for Africa (which takes the shine off Nepad, Africans’own initiative), what we need is a moratorium on implementation.
- The fact that the majority of “Commissioners” in the Commission are Africans themselves does not change anything. Those Africans are puppets of neo-imperialism and neo-colonialism, including President Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzanaia and Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia. Have the many treaties Mkapa and Zenawi have signed and adhered to before been implemented in their respective countries? Where the change?
- Let Prime Minister Tony Blair start by acting and the rest will follow. For example on corruption and good governance. How come British multinationals involved in the raping and the looting of Africa, especially in the Democratic Republic of Congo, are not investigated? As you know Britain has benefited a lot from the booties of corrupt leaders such as Mobutu and Sani Abacha. Britain (London), not Switzerland, is today the main destination of African dictators’looted wealth from their own countries. How come the London end of corruption does not disturb anybody? As you know 60%-70% of the looted money in Africa finds its way in Britain.
- After September 11, Britain and America and their allies had no difficulties in finding the culprits. Why is it not easy to find Africa’s looted money in western banks? Or those responsible for a genocide of 5 million Congolese?
- The fact that the Commission for Africa was launched in the British Museum was in itself an irony of history. It is there in the British Museum that you find most of looted goods from Africa since colonial time. We will mention only Nigeria’s Benin bronzes which should be returned home.
- The Commission for Africa is a spin on poverty. I was launched on “Red Nose Day” – a day of pitying Africa. Aid and aid pushers will do nothing in Africa as long as the global system incarnated by global financial institutions is fundamentally unjust. The self-interests of bigger countries is an obstacle to a just and fair world, let alone a for a fair trade. We see some powerful countries wanting the UN to be dismantled and the militarisation of the World Bank is the order of the day."
- "After arming Rwanda and Uganda to invade Congo, killing 5 million Congolese and looting Congo's natural and mineral resources, especially coltan for mobile phones, as Brian Sport Martin a British mecenary just admitted on British TV recently (please read full article in our Documents section), British Prime Minister Tony Blair has just shed crocodile's tears by inaugurating his "Commission for Africa" to help Africa. Lit the fire and and present yourself as an officer of the fire brigade. That's it!"
Antoine Roger Lokongo
VIII. VERY IMPORTANT FACTS- DES FAITS TRES IMPORTANTS!
1. "Every Congolese knows someone who has been killed, kidnapped, raped, eaten, deported to Rwanda to be massacred or enslaved or jailed by Rwandans, RCD-Kigali and MLC"
«Chaque Congolais en RDC connaît quelqu'un qui a été tué, kidnappé, violée, mangé (cannibalisme), deporté au Rwanda pour être massacré, ou emprisonné par les Rwandais, le RCD-Kigali et le MLC»
2. «Sans ramener la guerre d'où elle est venue, et sans dédollariser son économie, le Congo ne vaut rien comme un pays souverain. Tous les pays du monde ont des monnaies nationales, n'est ce pas? D'ailleurs le Franc Congolais poursuit maintenant sa chute libre à tel point que la circulation des billets telles que les "Mikomboso" de triste memoire et sans valeur, est imminente. Voilà! Le retour du Mobutisme sans Mobutu est à craindre»
“Without taking the war back where it came from and without dedollarising its economy, the Democratic Republic of Congo is worth nothing as a sovereign state.”
3. SUR LA TUTSIFICATION DU POUVOIR DANS LA REGION DES GRANDS LACS AFRICAINS (cf., Documents dans notre site):
Les Tutsi, un groupe ethnique de complexes et de presque demeurés (dixit James Kabarebe, Chef d’Etat Major Rwandais à l’Université Libre de Kagali) lesquels trichent abondamment avec l’histoire (certains réclament la nationalité congolaise alors qu’ils ne sont pas Congolais) et s’exercent à jouer aux parfaits persécutés du continent africain.
ON THE TUTSIFICATION OF POWER IN THE GREAT LAKES REGION (cf., Documents in our web site):
The Tutsis as an ethnic group are characterised by fears, complexes and almost lost senses (dixit, James Kabarebe, Rwandan Chief of staff at the Kigali Open University), which they abundantly use to cheat with history (some are claiming Congolese nationality but they are not Congolese) and strive to maliciously masquerade as the perfect persecuted (playing the victim card) of the african continent.
IX. Experts Named To Monitor UN Arms Embargo On DR Of Congo
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan this week named five experts to monitor the Security Council arms embargo against the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), with a mandate expiring at the end of July.
He told the Security Council that they were Ibra Deguène Ka of Senegal, who will chair the Group of Experts, arms trafficking expert Kathi Lynn Austin from the United States, finance expert Enrico Carisch of Switzerland, aviation expert Abdoulaye Cissoko of Mali and customs and border control expert Jean Luc Gallet of France.
In April the Council voted to extend the embargo to “any recipient” in the DRC, though it made exceptions to the country’s Transitional Government, under certain circumstance, and the UN peacekeeping mission there.
The resolution also froze the assets of sanctions violators, and required neighbouring countries to monitor aircraft and their pilots, especially in the eastern DRC districts of the Kivus and Ituri, especially by verifying the validity of documents carried for the aircraft and pilots’ licences and by maintaining a registry of flights.
The Governments of the region were also obliged to ensure that only customs airports were used for international flights, and were called on to report back in 45 days on how they had implemented the resolution.
X. ZIMBABWE MEDIA HIGHLIGHT ERRORS IN THE BRITISH ELECTIONS, AS THE INDEPENDENT, A BRITISH DAILY ISSUES AN OUTCRY OVER ELECTORAL FRAUD: "GIVE US BACK OUR DEMOCRACY!!!", IT CRIED.
Source : sapa
6.05. 2005
Zimbabwe's state media has ignored the victory of Prime Minister Tony Blair in the British general election, having earlier highlighted problems with omissions of voters' names from rolls in some constituencies.
President Robert Mugabe, who has been in power since 1980 independence, described the recent March 31 Zimbabwean parliamentary elections as the anti-Blair poll claiming the country's chronic economic crisis resulted from British sponsored sanctions designed to reverse seizure of five thousand white owned farms.
Mugabe's ruling party gained a greatly increased majority but Western diplomats said the election was marred by widespread rigging.
In fact, on 22.08.2002, Daily Telegraph, a British daily, splashed a big headline in its World News section that stunned many people:
"Mugabe cheated his way to power and he must go, says US"
The paper quoted Walter Kansteiner, the then US government’s "Africa policy" chief as saying: "America does not see President Mugabe as the democratically legitimate leader of the country. He won power by fraud and Washington was working with countries in Africa (he cited South Africa, Botswana and Mozambique) and Europe to ‘encourage the body politic of Zimbabwe’ to correct that situation."
Reading this and recalling how President George W. Bush came to power in 2000 (we still don’t know who won the election, black votes in Florida for instance, were not counted …), one might come to the conclusion that America’s foreign policy makers, obsessed by Africa’s raw materials, had absolutely gone bonkers, it was commented then in Zimbabwe.
XI. UN sexual cases double
Source: BBC
7.05.2005
Sexual abuse and exploitation by UN staff more than doubled last year, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has said in a report.
Most of the allegations, which include rape, sexual assault and sex with minors, involved UN peacekeepers.
Mr Annan says he is "deeply troubled" by the increase.
Four Nepalese soldiers flew home at the beginning of May to face sex abuse charges. They served with the UN in DR Congo, where claims of misconduct arose in 2003.
The Nepalese army said the men would be investigated, and court-martialled if the charges were found to have substance.
Misconduct by UN troops in DR Congo in 2003 sparked an inquiry and an overhaul of procedures.
Exploitation claims
"The increase in allegations is deeply troubling," Mr Annan says in the report.
"Although allegations have doubled since 2003, the Secretariat is aware that the data may still not reflect the true extent of these deplorable incidents."
A total of 121 cases of sexual exploitation and abuse were registered last year.
The majority of these - 105 in total - were levelled against peacekeepers.
The report says more may come to light as people feel more confident that reporting incidents will result in action.
Almost half of the complaints against the peacekeeping troops involved sex with a minor and 15% involved rape or sexual assault.
Some 77,000 UN peacekeepers are deployed on missions including those in Ivory Coast, Liberia, DR Congo, Cambodia, Kosovo and East Timor.
Refugees and those fleeing conflict are often vulnerable to abuse
Ten claims were also made against UN civilian personnel working for the UN refugee agency, UNHCR.
The UN has recently published a series of guidelines to change the way peacekeeping operations are run.
The proposals include withholding pay for peacekeepers found guilty of sexual abuse, creating a fund to assist the victims, and establishing a uniform set of rules so that all peacekeepers - troops and civilians - are held to the same standards of conduct.
The report said that missions in Ivory Coast, Liberia, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Kosovo and East Timor have already established no-go areas for peacekeepers.
A non-fraternisation policy has also been introduced.
Some 53 uniformed peacekeepers were sent home last year after allegations made against them were substantiated, the report says.
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