The Democratic Republic of Congo on Wednesday banned a documentary film about a doctor who treats war rape victims, leading the filmmakers to say the government was trying to silence debate about sexual violence.
Media Minister Lambert Mende gave no reason for the decision to ban The Man who Mends Women (L’Homme Qui Repare Les Femmes), which is about Congolese gynecologist Denis Mukwege, the founder of Panzi Hospital in the eastern city of Bukavu.
Sexual violence by militias and the army is a defining atrocity of a conflict in eastern Congo that has lasted two decades, and the hospital has treated thousands of rape victims.
Several high-level perpetrators have recently been convicted.
Human rights groups have accused the army of using rape as a weapon, but military leaders objected to the film as slanderous, said Thierry Michel, the film’s Belgian co-producer.
“The banning of the scheduled screening of this film is a way of gagging (Mukwege) … and (the voice) of the victims of these wars and tragedies that the country has lived through for 20 years,” Michel said in the statement.
The film, co-financed by Belgium’s foreign affairs ministry and the International Organisation of La Francophonie, was scheduled to be screened in the capital, Kinshasa, next week and Bukavu the following week.
Mukwege won the Sakharov Prize, Europe’s top human rights award, last October and was tipped for last year’s Nobel Peace Prize.
Hundreds of British firms operating abroad may be implicated in severe human rights abuses such as modern slavery, poverty-level wages, beatings, killings and environmental damage, an international NGO warns.
The NGO probed one such British firm, Glencore, regarding its conduct in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
A report released by the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre on Wednesday found that British businesses impact heavily on communities and individuals around the globe.
The NGO’s research suggests UK firms are linked to human rights scandals worldwide, many of which occur in developing nations.
This improper conduct is compounded by “critical weaknesses” in UK regulation that leave victims in foreign states defenseless against firms’ “negligent or reckless” practices, the research found.
Out of sight, out of mind?
The Resource Centre monitors the human rights impacts of more than 6,000 firms in over 180 states. When human rights concerns are raised by civilians, it approaches the firms in question and sounds them out.
Since 2005, the Resource Centre has contacted 303 UK-based firms across the world about allegations of human rights violations.
The NGO’s report says the majority of these allegations center on UK firms’ practices abroad, particularly in the Global South. Its research uncovered “critical weaknesses in UK Government policy and action on business and human rights.”
While firms’ conduct in Britain is regulated, improper practices of UK companies operating abroad regularly “go unpunished,” the NGO said.
The Resource Centre warned that victims of “corporate abuse” face diminished access to justice in Britain, particularly since the coalition government introduced the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012.
The NGO’s report said UK firms operating within the extractive industry require particularly “urgent attention.”
“Allegations against extractive companies were 47 percent of the total against UK companies,” it said. The NGO probed Glencore in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
“While London has become a global hub for mining and extractive industries, these companies are often implicated in some of the most egregious allegations of human rights abuses, including displacements, killings, and large-scale pollution.”
Among the charges leveled at the firm were claims it had contaminated local communities’ water supplies, and was linked to brutal beatings and killings by police.
Glencore insisted it “is committed to upholding human rights,” and refuted allegations that it “manipulates DRC regulation to suit its interests.”
The Resource Centre’s report also uncovered UK firms’ links to allegations of labor rights abuses, particularly within the fashion industry. Allegations of modern slavery also surfaced in its study.
“UK companies are linked to allegations of labor rights abuses and modern slavery, particularly through complex global supply chains,” the report said.
“Among non-extractive companies, these issues emerged as the key area of concern, particularly for apparel companies.”
“Allegations [also] linked UK companies to forced labor, union busting, poverty wages, and workplace deaths – like the Rana Plaza factory collapse that took the lives of 1,129 workers in 2013,” it added.
The Resource Centre’s report called upon the next government to encourage and compel British companies to respect their staff’s basic human rights, and ensure abuses are met with accountability.
Economic Relations Programme Director Peter Frankental of Amnesty International UK, said the message of the Resource Center’s report is clear.
“When it comes to respecting human rights, businesses need to raise their game and the government needs to hold them accountable when they don’t.”
Phil Bloomer, director of the Resource Centre, said UK businesses severely impact upon communities worldwide.
“As a leading economy our companies should be setting the standard for corporate conduct on human rights, not being implicated in everything from poverty wages to beatings and killings,” he said.
“The next government must encourage and push companies to respect human rights and ensure abuses do not go unpunished.”
Refugee quotas have significantly been reduced by Finnish municipalities
Finnish municipalities have significantly cut quotas on receiving refugees from foreign countries.
Refugee quotas have significantly been reduced by Finnish municipalities, with just 40 of them signaling readiness to receive refuges, local media outlets reported.
Last year, the municipalities received more than 1,000 refugees, a record number that experts attributed to additional government funding and the Syrian conflict.
In addition, Finland increased the quota for refugees from 750 to over a thousand.
This year, the refugee quota stands at 1050, but it is unlikely to be implemented in time.
Meanwhile, the regions of Satakunta and South Ostrobothnia have said that they will not receive refugees this year.
The regions of Uusimaa, Ostrobothnia and Pirkanmaa will receive the majority of refugees — 160, 120 and 100 respectively.
As for the major cities, most refugees will be received by Tampere and Kuopio, while Helsinki and Turku will only receive a dozen people each.
People fleeing Syria remain refugees of choice for Finnish municipalities, while refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo are reportedly the most unwelcome people.
South African troops are heading for a fight with battle-hardened rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The government yesterday announced that a confrontation with Forces for Democratic Liberation of Rwanda in the Democratic Republic of Congo was “inevitable”.
Four thousand FDLR soldiers, many of whom were involved in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, terrorise the eastern DRC.
The looming fight comes after the FDLR ignored the UN’s January 2 disarmament deadline.
Department of International Relations and Cooperation spokesman Clayson Monyela said: “The FDLR has failed to comply with the deadline. It renders a military option inevitable.”
South Africa has 1000 troops in the DRC as part of the UN’s Force Intervention Brigade, which is tasked with “neutralising” threats to the region, and will be sending 1000 fresh soldiers into battle.
Last year, South African troops fought against M23 rebels in several fierce battles.
The Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) have missed the deadline set by the Southern African Development Community to voluntarily disarm themselves, it said on Saturday.
In spite of the presence of 20,000 UN peacekeepers, around 50 Congolese and foreign armed groups are still active in the region.
SADC chairman President Jacob Zuma urged the FDLR to come forward and disarm themselves unconditionally.
“The deadline set by the heads of state and government of SADC… for the FDLR to disarm voluntarily or face military action expired yesterday, 2 January 2015,” Zuma said in a statement.
A joint summit by the SADC heads of states would be held in Luanda, Angola to decide on measures to be taken.
“SADC remains committed to the internationally mandated objective of neutralising all negative forces operating in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, including the FDLR, and remains ready to play its fullest part in this regard,” Zuma said.
The east of the DRC has been a conflict area for two decades, French news agency Agence France-Presse reported last month.
Two major wars between 1996 and 2003, were fought with neighbouring countries including Uganda and Rwanda intervening directly or using militias to do their bidding.
Zimbabwe’s dictator Robert Mugabe unleashed a storm of brutal, genocidal violence after losing the 2008 elections — and now we know that it was funded by western hedge-funds and banks, led by Och-Ziff Capital Management, the largest publicly traded fund, with assistance from Blackrock, GLG Partners, and Credit Suisse, who raised $100M for Mugabe’s weapons and torture-chambers in exchange for a sweetheart deal on the country’s platinum mines.
Daniel Och’s Och-Ziff manages $45.7B, including funds from the California Public Employees’ Retirement System. Och’s protege, Michael Cohen, led the charge to fund Mugabe’s pogrom; while an Israeli diamond trader called Dan Gertler helped broker a joint deal with OCH to invest in mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo, another nation whose state is complicit in horrific terror-campaigns that include child soldiery and rape camps.
Och-Ziff is under investigation for its deals in Zimbabwe and DRC, including allegations that it deliberately and illegally disguised its involvmeent. Cohen left Och-Ziff in 2013, shortly after buying a $22M country estate outside London: “Ewhurst Park, the more than 900-acre spread includes a sprawling main house, cottages, a church, a large lake with ducks, a boathouse, bridges, wooded areas, fountains, and formal gardens.” Cohen wouldn’t provide a comment to Businessweek on the deals.
Four days later, Camec announced it was using the money it raised to purchase a joint venture with the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corp., or ZMDC, Mugabe’s state-owned mining company. The joint venture owned the platinum stakes on the Great Dyke that had been taken back just a few weeks earlier from Anglo American. The price included $5 million in cash; Camec issued shares to partners whose identities were shielded by a shell company based in the British Virgin Islands; and $100 million to Mugabe’s government. Camec said the $100 million was a cash loan “to comply with its contractual obligations to the government of Zimbabwe” for the platinum claims. It said the money would be repaid out of ZMDC’s share of future platinum earnings. Camec’s balance sheets for the period make clear that funding for the platinum rights came from the private transactions involving Och-Ziff.
On the day Camec announced the deal with Mugabe’s government, two of McGee’s embassy employees were in the countryside gathering intelligence on Mugabe’s efforts to ensure his win. A lieutenant colonel in the president’s army told embassy staffers that soldiers, militia members, and ruling party backers loyal to Mugabe were training to conduct what he called a “reorientation campaign,” according to McGee and embassy cables. The lieutenant colonel also said 400 vehicles were being deployed to facilitate the operation.
Violence intensified throughout May. Soldiers drove opposition supporters out of their rural villages or urban neighborhoods. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, more than 33,000 people were driven from their homes by month’s end. Hundreds turned up at the gates of the American Embassy. “These people were literally running for their lives,” McGee says.
Every year, an estimated 180,000 people die from the mosquito-carried malaria virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Yet a preventative government initiative to hand out mosquito nets has backfired, with people using the nets as garden fences.
A FRANCE 24 Observer in the eastern city of Goma recounted how insecticide-treated bed nets are increasingly being used to fence off gardens and hung up to protect fruit trees from insects.
This situation is not isolated to the Democratic Republic of Congo, but is also practiced in other malaria-blighted African countries such as in Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, where mosquito nets have reportedly been used for making fishing nets, wedding gowns, house decorations and poultry enclosures.
“I don’t even think they care that others may catch malaria because they don’t have any nets,” says Charly Kasereka, a Goma-based journalist who works for a local radio station.
In at least 10 of the 18 neighbourhoods in the city, people misuse mosquito nets in this way. It’s a common sight outside of Goma too, he says.
The nets are being distributed by health centres that have been set up as part of the National Programme for the Struggle against Malaria (PNLP) which calculate the number of nets depending on the size of the household. A family of five, for example, will have the right to two bed nets.
Uganda will announce the lead investor and operator for its planned oil refinery in July and expects to conduct a licensing round for its vacant petroleum exploration acreage next year.
The east African country first discovered crude deposits in the Albertine rift basin along its border with Democratic Republic of Congo in 2006 and reserves are estimated by the government at 3.5 billion barrels.
The government moved closer to getting the hydrocarbons industry off the ground last month when it signed a memorandum of understanding with three oil firms laying out a blueprint for the commercial development of its oil fields.
According to the deal, crude produced by the three firms – Britain’s Tullow Oil, France’s Total and China’s CNOOC – will be shared between a thermal power generation plant, a planned refinery and an export pipeline.
Commercial oil production is expected to begin in 2016 at the earliest.
In December the energy ministry announced five consortia and one individual firm had been shortlisted to bid for the $2.5 billion refinery.
The lead investor – which will also operate the plant – is expected to take up a 60 percent stake, with the remainder going to the Ugandan government.
The individual company shortlisted is Marubeni Corp , while the five consortia are respectively led by Petrofac, Global Resources, China Petroleum Pipeline Bureau, SK Energy and Vitol.
Robert Kasande, the energy ministry official overseeing the project, said the government had been holding pre-bidding talks with those shortlisted.
“They are expected to submit their final proposals in May, then evaluation will follow,” Kasande said. “In July we will announce the winner,” he added.
Uganda has scaled back its refining ambitions over the past two years. It now plans to start with a refinery with capacity of 30,000 barrels per day (bpd), gradually rising to 60,000 bpd.
It had initially wanted a plant that could process 120,000 bpd but oil firms argued that would not be commercially viable.
About 60 percent of the Albertine graben, which measures about 23,000 square kilometres, remains unlicensed, according to the energy ministry’s petroleum exploration and production department.
“We also hope next year we should be ready to license another batch of (exploration) blocks,” said Kasande.
State media in Zimbabwe largely ignored Mandela’s death. On Zimbabwe’s only television channel – the state-controlled Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation – Mandela’s death was not given any prominence.
The station focused on the late Brigadier General Misheck Tanyanyiwa, who has been declared a national hero.
President Robert Mugabe sent his condolences however, in which he hailed “the great icon of African liberation, freedom fighter, a beacon of excellence and a humble and compassionate leader”, despite many Zimbabweans declaring that Mandela was not a hero.
Mugabe was clearly referring to Mandela’s legacy of terror and violence, but Zimbabweans in general were less forgiving.
“The problems South Africa is facing today are originating from the time when he was the president. He is a famous prisoner who sacrificed the dream of his people on the alter of expedience,” one said scathingly.
Mandela’s death stirred debate in Zimbabwe as the former terrorist is often compared to Mugabe.
Mandela was 95 and Mugabe is 90, and both spent long periods in jail in their quest for independence – Mugabe spent more than 10 years held by the Ian Smith regime against Mandela’s 27.
They clashed publicly in 1998 when Mandela over the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) following a rebel offensive in that country.
Mandela as chairperson of the Southern African Development Community opposed bailing out Laurent Kabila when Mugabe wanted military intervention. Zimbabwe sent its forces to back Kabila.
Mandela’s most scathing attack on the Zimbabwean leader came in June 2008 when he spoke at a dinner in London against Mugabe. Mugabe had just lost the first round of elections against Morgan Tsvangirai from the opposition MDC.
Mandela then spoke of “the tragic failure of leadership in our neighbouring Zimbabwe”.
Mugabe also lambasted Mandela for going out of his way to please white South Africans.
“They [whites] will praise you only if you are doing things that please them. Mandela has gone a bit too far in doing good to the non-black communities, really in some cases at the expense of [blacks],” Mugabe said. “That is being too saintly, too good, too much of a saint.”
The Chinese, investing heavily in Africa to secure its oil and other raw materials for their expanding economy, are spearheading a new era of railroad building to unlock the continent’s interior.
This is an echo of the long-gone colonial empires when a century ago British and French engineers first opened up Africa to plunder its riches.
The railroad frenzy is being accompanied by a massive push to build several major ports along the coast of East Africa to accelerate exports across the Indian Ocean, mostly to China, India and Japan, as well as lay down a network of oil and gas pipelines to these ports.
“Railways are key to increasing regional trade,” said Darlan Fabio de David, chief executive of Rift Valley Railways, a private equity-backed company rehabilitating the line between the Kenyan port of Mombasa and the inland Ugandan capital of Uganda that was built by the British between 1896 and 1901.
Kenya, which has found oil, is a key link in all this because it lies on the Indian Ocean. There are plans to build a huge deepwater port at Lamu which would act as a rail and pipeline hub for regional exports.
Further north, landlocked Ethiopia is another. It has no ports, but it has long been a pivotal economic player in the region, funneling goods from inland Africa to the continent’s ports through its rail lines.
Extending that network would stimulate economic activity further inland and export trade via the Red Sea port of Djibouti in the Horn of Africa.
In Tanzania, which with neighboring Mozambique is on the cusp of a major offshore gas boom, the main port of Dar es Salaam, the capital, could greatly enhance its importance as the main export center for copper and cobalt from Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Congo’s mineral-rich, and war-ravaged, Katanga province produces 580,000 metric tons of copper a year and about 60,000 metric tons of cobalt. Zambia produces 6,750,000 tons of copper annually.
Between them they account for 7 percent of the world’s copper output and roughly half the planet’s cobalt.
New rail lines, replacing the costly road system currently in use, would cut transportation costs. Hauling these products to the east coast rather than southward via Durban in South Africa would allow the DRC and Zambia to export larger volumes of minerals.
The Chinese have been making massive investments in Africa over the last decade in return for access to the continent’s mineral riches.
The recent oil and gas discoveries in East Africa, ideally located for direct shipment eastward across the Indian Ocean, and the prospect of more to come have accelerated Chinese investment in streamlining transportation systems to the planned megaports.
On Nov. 28, the presidents of Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and the fledgling state of South Sudan conducted the groundbreaking of Kenya’s $4 billion Mombasa-Nairobi line, financed by the Export-Import Bank of China, which will run parallel to the existing colonial-era line.
“The project will define my legacy as president of Kenya,” declared Uhuru Kenyatta.
The first section will link the Kenyan port of Mombasa to the capital, Nairobi, reducing the journey time from 15 hours to about four.
It is said to be the country’s biggest infrastructure project since independence 50 years ago.
The cost of the railway will be $5.2bn (£3.2bn) – mostly funded by China.
Some Kenyans have complained that the contract was given to the Chinese state-owned China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) without going to tender.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping agreed the deal in August in Beijing.
There are now almost 1 million Chinese living in Africa. A decade ago, there only a few thousand.
China’s new president, Xi Jinping, visited Tanzania and the DRC in the summer, his first major foreign tour, underlining Africa’s importance in China’s economic strategy.
China recently overtook the United States as the world’s largest importer of oil. Almost 80 percent of Chinese imports from Africa are mineral products.
China is the continent’s leading business partner, with trade — which tripled over the last decades — exceeding $166 billion. That’s expected to soar over the next 10 years when the new railroads, pipelines and ports kick in.
Direct investment — usually building airports, highways, schools, factories and railroads — is more difficult to quantify because much of Beijing’s funding goes through tax shelters. But China’s ambassador to South Africa recently said it “exceeds $40 billion.”
Another major project is rehabilitating the rail link between Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, and the port of Djibouti, a tiny former colony of France on the Red Sea, which links the Mediterranean with the Indian Ocean.
The 475-mile, $3 billion line is being built largely by Chinese companies, as is the Mombasa-Nairobi track. China will also provide most of the locomotives and rolling stock. – UPI/BBC
The United Nations officials see the launch of the much-anticipated deployment of unmanned surveillance drones in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as a major game-changer.
The primary role of the Unarmed Aerial Vehicle (UAV) will be to gather intelligence on armed groups in the region and better assist the peacekeeping force Monusco in its primary responsibility of protecting civilians. It is the UN’s new eyes in the sky.
The vast mineral rich region is at the heart of a conflict zone where millions have died over the past two decades.
Speaking from the launch site in Goma in the eastern DRC, UN’s head of peacekeeping operations Herve Ladsous says. “The United Nations has entered the 21st century from the technological point of view. This is something we never had but this is now in use in many armies around the world and many organizations. I think we had to get it to allow our people to do a better job in the fulfilment of the mandate.”
The Monusco mission will start with two UAVs but up to five could be in operation after trials are completed. Council President Ambassador Gerard Araud of France hinted that the drones could become more widespread.
“There are other missions who are saying already we will need drones that will considerably improve protection of the soldiers to see if threats are out there and also to ensure protection of civilians, clearly imagine South Sudan – where there are few roads, maybe 100km throughout the country of paved roads so drones would make it possible to much better know what the threats are and to better ensure protection of civilians,” says Araud.
Specific to the eastern DRC and weeks after the defeat of the M23, the UAVs will play a critical role in the targeting of several other armed groups in the region. While, with more eyes in the sky for the UN globally, peacekeeping could see major changes in the years ahead.
“On December 19, the Pakistani mission is organizing a day of thinking, brainstorming on peacekeeping and among the subjects the Ambassador of Pakistan wants to raise there will be the new technologies. Let us be clear, our battalions are still back in 1945, they patrol like they did in 1945. So there are many things that have changed from a technological stand point and that would make it possible to be more effective but also make it possible to use fewer soldiers, so clearly France and other countries are saying that the UN should modernize its actions naturally,” adds Araud.
Drones are by no means new to the theatre of conflict. Armed and surveillance drones are familiar tools having been used in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq with often deadly consequences.
The UN’s deployment of these vehicles could prove catalytic by fundamentally shifting the advantage in their favour in the various volatile arena it finds itself in globally. – SABC
The ‘Defeat of M23’ was perhaps orchestrated, says Andre Vltchek, an investigative journalist. The situation in the DRC is unpredictable, and exceptionally volatile
Reports suggested that the UN grew tired of the insurgents, and the M23 gunmen were pinned down in the hills bordering Rwanda and Uganda. They were shelled mercilessly and crushed.
The final peace accord has not been signed because the Congolese delegation refused to enter the ceremony room in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, claiming there is no point in signing any agreement in view of the fact that M23 no longer exists.
This is the story, or at least that is how the story has been told in London and Washington.
Vltchek is acquainted with the city of Goma, said the capital was once called the ‘Riviera of Kivu’. He was once kept in detention there, several floors underground, interrogated by Congolese intelligence agents
Goma is so full of natural gas it could explode at any moment without warning and perhaps kill tens of thousands of people.
Arthur Tewungwa, a Ugandan businessman and an opposition figure told him that “most knowledgeable observers of the problems pertaining to the eastern DRC are aware that Kagame and Museveni have been the main architects of the chaos that has prevailed in the region.The myriad of so-called rebel groupings are ‘Frankensteins’ created by them to enable the pillage of the region amidst the semblance of chaos.”
Congolese immigrants in South Africa have made similar remarks. They say M23 was created by president Kabila himself.
A leading expert on the DRC, and one of the former UN genocide investigators, Keith Harmon Snow, spoke about the role of foreign companies in the present situation:
“Meanwhile, multinational corporations operating in Eastern Congo under the media radar, but soaked in Congolese blood, include Banro Gold, Casa Mining, Randgold, Mwana Africa, Loncor, Anglo-Gold Ashanti, Kilo Gold, and Moku Gold. These corporations benefit from having the Rwandan Tutsi in Kinshasa (Kanambe) and have deep ties to the criminal extortion, money-laundering, racketeering and theft behind the plunder and depopulation in the Great Lakes countries. The United Nations Forces (MONUC, MONUSCO) and the Rapid Intervention Forces (note the heavy presence of South African troops and South African mining companies in Eastern Congo) serve the corporate agenda.”
In Tokyo, Ms. Masako Yonekawa, formerly the head of the UNHCR Goma Office in eastern DRC, confirmed on camera, during a discussion: “Well, Rwanda has been getting a lot of assistance from the US Government and the UK, so that’s why they were able to build up their military power…”
Vltchek asked her whether there was indifference on the part of the superpowers towards the suffering of the Congolese people, and she replied that it was intentional. It’s because they had a very strong economic interest… the natural resources in the Congo, they were all to the benefit of the world economy.
Noam Chomsky, discussed Rwanda and DRC with Vltchek in Boston in 2012.
“Eastern Congo is where probably the worst atrocities in the world are taking place… Who do you point the finger at? Oh, they may have been killed by militias? But behind the militias are multinational corporations and governments, but they are a stage removed. You don’t see the multinational corporations that are using the militias to slaughter people so that they can get access to the coltan that Westerners use in their cell phones. It’s indirect, and a lot of the atrocities and crimes that you are describing have that problem,” Chomsky said.
Some insiders, including Keith Harmon Snow, are not even convinced that M23 has actually been defeated:
“At present, the propaganda system is again trotting out the refrain that ‘rebels in Congo have been defeated.’ The latest so-called ‘rebels’ – the M23 forces – are actually Rwandan government troops, not rebels. Reports now appearing in the Western mass media are that the ‘M23 rebels’ have ‘surrendered in Uganda’, or ‘turned themselves in’ in Rwanda. This is nonsense, since these are Rwandan defense forces. The varying incarnations of ‘rebels’ in eastern Congo have always been backed by Museveni (Uganda) and Kagame (Rwanda), in turn backed by the USA, UK and Israel. M23 is the same: another predominantly Tutsi army serving the Tutsi/Hema elites, not the people of Uganda or the people of Rwanda/Burundi.
Media reports have exaggerated the fighting between Congolese troops (FARDC) and their UN partner army, the Rapid Intervention Forces, against the M23. Most M23 were warned in advance of an impending assault and they fled to Rwanda and Uganda.”
The numbers aren’t precise, but it is generally agreed that between 8 and 10 million Congolese people died between 1994 and the present.
“Everybody is talking about the Rwandan genocide,” Congolese Presidential candidate Ben Kalala once told me. “Some 800,000 people died there. I am sorry for them, because they are human beings. But in the Congo 8 million people died: women, children, elderly… So what is the world waiting for?”
News of the genocide never get out because Tony Blair was serving as personal adviser to the Rwandan President Paul Kagame, and has friends and allies like Bill Clinton, Bill Gates and numerous other political, as well as economic and religious leaders.
Right now the situation in Rwanda, Uganda and DRC is unpredictable, and exceptionally volatile.
“The situation in Kigali is extremely tense, right now”, an Asian diplomat based in East Africa, who asked not to be identified, explained to me.
“The atmosphere is also very confusing… Security is beefed-up and it is clear that something may happen any moment. There are rumors that the West may let Kagame fall soon and replace him with a more suitable puppet… And of course he knows; he is extremely smart, and cunning, unlike Museveni. That is why he is putting up fortifications around himself. He needs those M23 people around him, in case of war! He needs them back! It is almost certain that there will be a conflict here soon… Next year is the 20th anniversary of the ‘genocide’ and of the RPF taking over the country,” he said.
Another regional showdown is most likely approaching. In East and Central Africa, what is called peace could actually be just another battle in a never-ending war. – RT
Fresh fighting raged Thursday outside the flashpoint city of Goma in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the M23 rebels and regular army said, blaming each other for the new hostilities.
An army officer said rebels had attacked government-held positions on Wednesday night 20 kilometres (12 miles) north of the capital of North Kivu province, sparking clashes with heavy weaponry that continued into Thursday.
The territory, near the villages of Mutaho and Kibati, has been in government hands since mid-July, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
M23 intelligence officer Modeste Bahati confirmed the renewed fighting but blamed the army for starting it by attacking rebel positions around Kibati.
“Our forces are holding their positions,” he told AFP.
The rebels accused the army of wanting to “broaden” an offensive against them.
“The absurd war relaunched by the Congolese government appears to be an outburst of anger after the failure of military-style diplomacy in these past weeks,” the movement’s spokesman Amani Kabasha said in a statement.
Kabasha accused the army of breaching “recent recommendations by the UN Security Council, the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region, and the SADC (Southern African Development Community) for the resumption of peace talks.”
Both sides said they were not yet able to say how many people had been killed or wounded.
The rebellion by the M23, a movement launched by Tutsi ex-soldiers who mutinied from the army in April 2012, is the latest insurgency to ravage the vast central African country’s mineral-rich but conflict-torn east.
The rebels, estimated to number about 1000, have been active in North Kivu province since May 2012. Founded by members of a previous rebel group integrated into the military under a 2009 peace deal, they left the army because they accused the government of failing to abide by the terms of the agreement.
The M23 occupied Goma – a city of about one million people and the hub around which most of the fighting has revolved for 10 days in November 2012 before withdrawing under international pressure.
The latest bout of fighting, which erupted in mid-July and has flared up periodically ever since, ended an almost two-month truce reached in May when UN chief Ban Ki-moon visited the region. – Sapa/AFP
DRC government officials say South African soldiers are among those injured in renewed fighting around Goma.
South African soldiers are supporting Congolese troops as they battle M23 rebels in the DRC. The four soldiers were wounded on Friday.
Congolese troops are currently battling M23 rebels near the city of Goma.
The South Africans are part of a UN force supporting government troops. Ten Tanzanian soldiers were also injured in the fighting last week.
Fresh fighting broke out on Wednesday morning.
More than 1300 South African soldiers are stationed in the DRC. They were deployed in June as part of the UN’s Force Intervention Brigade.
Opposition parties have lashed out at government over the deployment of the soldiers to the DRC.
East Africa Bureau Chief Robyn Kriel spoke to us earlier about the latest in the DRC. – eNCA
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