Sunday, January 27, 2013

DR Congo: The AU appears to be getting serious

South African Broadcasting Corporation reports


Dlamini-Zuma calls for African standby force


                                                                  Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma

Chairperson of the African Union Commission Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has called on the AU member states to speed up the mobilisation of the African standby force to deal with the emergence of rebel organisations in some parts of the continent.

At a guess this is a reference to the DR Congo, although in truth there are so many rebellions going on I am not sure. The AU force has been agreed and mandated for the DR Congo though. 

Recently, the governments of Mali, DRC and Central African Republic have been fighting rebel groups.

As far as I am aware the AU has not agreed to intervene in Mali that is being handled by France and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) forces while the Central African Republic difficulties are being sorted out by South Africa.

Last week, the AU said it wanted to increase the size of the African peacekeeping forces in Mali to help normalise the situation in that country. 

Certainly ECOWAS forces are slowly being deployed but this is not under the auspices of the AU.
Speaking at the 20th session of the AU Summit underway in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, Dlamini-Zuma said the union must remain firm on its stance of no unconstitutional change of government. 

"The union must enhance our capacity to defend democratically elected governments and their territorial integrity, thus there is a need to accelerate the formation of the standby force and whatever other mechanisms that will enable us to have a quick response when the need arises."

The problem of course is that there aren't a lot of democratically elected governments suffering from rebel movements they can't handle by themselves. Mali and the CAR can under no circumstances be termed democratic, the DR Congo is at least attempting to go down the democratic road. For all that a standby force that can move quickly is a great idea. 4000 well armed AU troops ready to deploy at the drop of a hat might well have made M23 think a bit harder before invading Goma in the DR Congo.

Kenya: Manufacturing paradise

Africa News reports

Kenya begins construction of ' silicon ' city 

Konza


 


Kenya's president has launched a $14.5bn (£9.1bn) project to build a new city intended to be an IT business hub and dubbed "Africa's Silicon Savannah".

It will take 20 years to build Konza Technology City about 60km (37 miles) from the capital, Nairobi.
 
It is hoped that more than 20,000 IT jobs will be created in Konza by 2015, and more than 200,000 jobs by 2030.


It sounds awesome. This is a direct challenge to South Africa but in many ways it makes sense Kenya has 4 undersea fiber optic cables set to rise to 7 at the end of this year. The price of the land per acre was 200,000 Kenyan Shillings (about $2500 NZ ) according to the Beyond Brics website. ( Which I can't link to which very much suggests they shouldn't be reporting on developments like this despite their name.)

Despite Kenya's usually divisive politics, the project has the backing of all political parties.
 
Konza is part of the government's ambitious Vision 2030 initiative to improve much-neglected infrastructure over the next 18 years.


Any project such as this must have broad political backing the government is spending 210 million on basic infrastructure and envisions that growing to a 3 billion dollar investment over the next 5 years with private sector participation.
 
Correspondents say the government also wants to take advantage of the growing number of software developers in the East African nation.
 
'Tremendous opportunities'
 
"It is expected to spur massive trade and investment as well as create thousands of employment opportunities for young Kenyans in the ICT [information communications technology] sector," President Mwai Kibaki said at the ceremony to launch the construction, adding it would be a "game-changer" for the country's development.


Wow starting to wish I was a young Kenyan. 
 
He called on domestic and foreign investors to take advantage of Konza's "tremendous opportunities".
 
The 5,000-acre (2,011-hectare) site was a ranch to the south-east of Nairobi on the way to the port city of Mombasa.
 
When the plan was announced after the last elections property prices in the area soared, reporters say.
 
According to the Konza information website, the city wants to attract business process outsourcing, software development, data centres, disaster recovery centres, call centres and light assembly manufacturing industries.

A university campus focused on research and technology as well as hotels, residential areas, schools and hospitals will also be built.

It is visionary to say the least. From the artists impression it looks like it would be a great place to live. The time table is tight Kenya have given themselves just 17 years to completion, but good luck to them. 
The government has appointed the Konza Technopolis Development Authority to oversee the building of the IT hub, which will be built in four phases - starting with the technology centres first.

South Africa: Helen Zille and the DA's Challenge


Timeslive ( South Africa ) reports


'DA will not bring back apartheid': Zille

                                                               Helen Zille. File photo.

People should not fear that the Democratic Alliance will bring back apartheid if the party came into power, leader Helen Zille said on Saturday.

"We will never bring back apartheid. In fact, people who think life was better under apartheid do not belong in the DA. We will never take away your grants or houses," Zille said.
Last year I read When Mandela Goes and I blogged about it and have been meaning to follow up on that for some time. One of the points in the book was the possibility that the Democratic Alliance  held for the new South Africa. The book was published in 1997 and the author pointed out that  he held no great optimism for the party ever becoming a real challenger to the ANC.
"We will only work to expand opportunities, grow the economy to create jobs for more people, fix the schools... deliver basic services better, and stop the corruption that steals money straight from the pockets of the poorest people."
The Democratic Alliance returning South Africa to apartheid is a bloody joke as anyone with even the smallest knowledge of South African politics would know. The party has a proud history of opposing apartheid and grew out of the white anti-apartheid movement of the seventies so is philosophically opposed to the repugnance that is apartheid but on a more pragmatic note white rule in Africa is over period and it will never return.  
Zille was speaking at the welcoming of Jabulani Chiya to the party in Umzimkhulu, KwaZulu-Natal.
Chiya is a former African National Congress (ANC) member who ran independently in the municipal elections.
Zille said Chiya was part of the growing number of former ANC members and activists who were now joining the DA.
Again from memory the DA has since the fall of apartheid been making a real effort to attract " coloured " ( I hate that term ) and black membership. It currently is the official opposition in South Africa and in my opinion would be a far better organisation to inherit the mantel of Nelson Mandela than the corrupt and increasingly racist ANC.
In her speech Zille referred to a letter from Lesego Setou, written to the Mail&Guardian on Friday entitled "fear of the unknown".
Setou said that the reason why people stayed in toxic relationships was fear. They were afraid of the unknown and would rather stick with the known no matter how bitter, terrifying or unbearable it was.
"I realised how we have allowed the ANC to abuse us. We have rewarded the ANC with faith when it failed us with ever rising electricity tariffs," the letter read.
I agree completely the ANC has become a toxic brand but it is not only increasing electricity tariffs that have caused the problem. The ANC no longer cares for the people of South Africa. It is no longer committed to building a strong wealthy middle class. It has degenerated into a political party that props up the traditional black elites and maintains their control over the state. It has become in short the legitimate successor to the South African Nationalist Party. 
"We have been with the ANC even when it cheated us in the form of corrupt public servants who squander our tax money. We pardoned the ANC for infidelity in the form of the arms deal and we are still pardoning the ANC for slapping us in the face with e-tolling."
Setou said that a majority of black South Africans remain in a "toxic relationship" with the ANC and said they "have a fear of Helen Zille".
"We fear to take a chance on her [Zille] because of the colour of her skin, we fear the policies she has in store for us."
I actually can understand the fear of the DA when it comes to older black South Africans.The generation that grew up under apartheid have good reason to fear white rule and at the moment if you are white in South Africa that is a political reality that must be factored into any electoral equation. However South Africa ( like the rest of Africa ) is a young and becoming younger nation.
However, Zille said there was nothing to fear as evidenced by the move of ANC members to the DA.
She said they have come to see that the DA was "the best hope for the future" of the country.
The DA is a center left party and one that I would have no difficulty supporting if I was a South African. There are several paths open to South Africa one hopes they can see the futility of following Mugabe's example and leading South Africa down the Zimbabwe road as advocated by former ANC youth leader Julius Malema, who is by any reckoning a fool. The ANC seems to at best now offer an increasingly Swaziland alternative with the curtailment of individual liberties and the abolition of women rights. The DA offers a real future for South Africa but it must become in reality a party that is trusted by the black population of South Africa, that more than anything should be its priority. That is Helen Zille's Challenge.
"Today, I am here with Jabulani Chiya to show that there is nothing to be afraid of in the DA," she said.
"We want to build a future for South Africa where no one needs to fear the colour of another person's skin, as Mr Setou said -- because we all work for the betterment of one another, no matter who or what colour we are."
In other words Mandela's dream of the rainbow nation.

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Swaziland: No woman no crime. More batshit crazy


All Africa reports

Swaziland: No Crime, but Pregnant Woman Jailed




A women who is seven months pregnant was jailed in Swaziland, even though there were no allegations of wrongdoing or pending convictions against her, after her mother told a magistrate her daughter needed correcting.
Vuyesihle Magagula, aged 21, was sent to the Mawelawela Correctional Facility before being released by a High Court judge.
Yes due process is great. The actual answer is a case being brought against Swaziland in the International Court of justice. The invasion of this young woman's civil rights is unconscionable.
The Swazi Observer reported today (22 January 2013) that her mother went to the magistrate's court and sought the order which confined her own daughter to prison.
Her father, Zephaniah Magagula went to the High Court to have her released. He told the court that on 21 December, 2012 he was informed by her boyfriend that his daughter had been taken to custody at the behest of her mother, the newspaper reported.
He stated that it was his belief that Vuyesihle had been unlawfully detained against her will. Magagula had met with the Deputy Commissioner of His Majesty Correctional Services who informed him that there was a lawful order sanctioning the detention of his daughter.
Lawful must have a different definition in the pornocracy that is Swaziland.
Magagula said that the Correctional Services refused him permission to see his daughter.
Justice Bheki Maphalala ordered that Vuyesihle be released.
This is not the first case in Swaziland where a person has been placed in custody although they had not committed a crime.
It might also be timely for the AU to start taking a bit more notice of civil rights. 
Last month (December 2012) it was revealed children in Swaziland were being locked up in juvenile detention, even though they had committed no crime and Isaiah Mzuthini Ntshangase, Swaziland's Correctional Services Commissioner, was encouraging parents to send their 'unruly children' to the facility if they thought they were badly behaved.
Ntshangase said the action assisted 'in the fight against crime by rooting out elements from a tender age'. He was reported saying the children 'will be locked up, rehabilitated and integrated back to society'.

DR Congo: A response to Antoine Roger Lakongo


All Africa reports

Rwanda: The Tutsi Contradictions - a Response to Jean-Paul Kimonyo

                                                 Cartoon Radio Netherlands Worldwide 

BY ANTOINE ROGER LOKONGO, 24 JANUARY 2013

Rwanda's criminal involvement in the wanton violence in eastern DR Congo is neither deniable nor defensible. It is a sad irony that Rwanda now sits in the UN Security Council while aiding and abetting crimes against humanity
Despite the fact that Pan-Africanism is considered by France as a "threat to Western interests in Africa", as a French defense report indicated in October 2012, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which is Patrice Lumumba's land of birth, will always remain a "hotbed" of Pan-Africanism whose main attributes are African solidarity and hospitality.

I am unsure as to why France is getting it in the neck or quite what Patrice Lumumba has to do with the issue of Rwanda's ongoing bad behaviour in the DR Congo. Lumumba was the initial independence PM of the DR Congo his administration lasting just 12 weeks and ultimately ending with his execution at the instigation of Belgium.

" Dead, living, free, or in prison on the orders of the colonialists, it is not I who counts. It is the Congo, it is our people for whom independence has been transformed into a cage where we are regarded from the outside… History will one day have its say, but it will not be the history that Brussels, Paris, Washington, or the United Nations will teach, but that which they will teach in the countries emancipated from colonialism and its puppets... a history of glory and dignity." ----    Patrice Lumumba, October 1960 
This explains why whenever Tutsi and Hutu have taken turns to slaughter each other in Rwanda or Burundi, the DRC has always welcomed both Tutsi and Hutu refugees alike with open arms. Bosco Ntaganda is just one of the beneficiaries of such hospitality. But now the Congolese people are paying a heavy price for their hospitality.

Actually it explains absolutely nothing at all, other than a very confused world view on the part of Lokongo.
Pan-Africanism does not mean fellow Africans coming to Congo to wage war on the Congolese so as to cleverly deprive the Congolese of their land and their natural resources through rape as a weapon of war and genocide with the backing of western powers. True Africans do not kill each other, not in Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi or in other African countries.

Nobody I know ever thought that that was the meaning of Pan Africanism. 


Pan-Africanism is an ideology and movement that encourages the solidarity of Africans worldwide. It is based on the belief that unity is vital to economic, social and political progress and aims to “unify and uplift” people of African descent.
The ideology asserts that the fates of all African peoples and countries are intertwined. At its core Pan-Africanism is “a belief that African peoples, both on the continent and in the Diaspora, share not merely a common history, but a common destiny
True Africans do not give in to "Western divide and rule" policy and subject each other to genocide. True Africans are able to say "NO" to Western machinations in Africa. Hence the importance of African ideological, political, economic and social unity.

It is difficult read this in any other way than an attempt to lay the blame for the genocide in Rwanda against the Tutsi and moderate Hutu's at the feet of the West. Many post colonial African problems can be laid quite fairly at the West's door but not exclusively and as for on going issues Africa needs to take control of her own destiny the blaming of colonial powers is wearing very thin well into the 21 century.
1. NTAGANDA IS NOT CONGOLESE
Although Africans holds a communitarian worldview, in each village every family builds its own house out of which the sharing takes place. As an African, I always say, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa (taken as an examples) are my other houses. My own house is Congo.
I have always said that Ntaganda is not a Congolese, not because I am anti-Tutsi but because this is a fact and he and his fellow Rwandans, Hutu and Tutsi alike, who fled ethnic strife in Rwanda are spitting on the hand that is feeding them or cutting the tree branch on which they are sitting.

A couple of points need to be made here, the West is blamed rightly for many of the arbitrary boundaries that exist in Africa so I would hesitate to contradict any individuals right or not to citizenship on those grounds alone. That said I know nothing of Ntaganda's ancestral connections to the DR Congo or Rwanda. The second point is that Ntanganda did spend his formative teenage years in the DR Congo. Lakongo seems to be questioning the citizenship of all Tutsi in the eastern DR Congo many who have been there for generations and have frequently married into other ethnic groups. 

Lakongo aught to know as I do from a first hand account of the ethnic cleansing and attempted ethnic cleansing of people of such descent ( Tutsi ) and the ongoing discrimination they face not just in the Eastern DR Congo but indeed in provinces further afield. Ask any of them how they fared  at the hands of FARDC, prior to the invasion of M23. 

Ntaganda's service in the Rwandan armed forces is certainly a factor in favour of the point that Lakongo makes.     
Pan-Africanism does not mean condoning criminal behavior and untruth. If Congo with its fertile lands, waterfalls (hydropower potential), forests, natural and mineral resources, fauna and flora, rich cultural diversity, benign climate, geostrategic position in the heart of Africa succeeds, the whole of Africa will. Why can't Rwandans and Ugandans understand and believe this instead of playing the role of western powers' dogs of war?

Again Lakongo blames the West rather than place responsibility for the instability squarely where it belongs on the African actors in the central and eastern part of the continent. There is no doubt the West is a market for the resources he talks of as is China to add some further balance, but unlike the warring African factions the West is prepared to pay. The problem is who to pay and that is a DR Congo problem that must be solved ultimately by the DR Congo.  
Yes, there is corruption in Congo, so it is in Rwanda and Uganda. The truth is corruption in any African country automatically affects other African countries. Narrow, mono-ethnic and corrupt type of governance in Rwanda and Uganda is automatically affecting the whole region of the Great Lakes. So if each country does its own homework, Africa will soon become a paradise.

I have rarely read such rubbish as the last paragraph, enough said.
Anyway, for now, if you do not believe me, believe at least the 15 May 2012 BBC report according to which Bosco Ntaganda was born in 1973 in Kiningi, a small town on the foothills of Rwanda's Virunga mountain range, famous for its gorillas; not because I rely on the BBC, but because the report lends support to what I have always said.

I doubt any sane person debates this, as for the BBC you are an idiot to doubt or accept any person or organisation on the grounds of race alone. The BBC can stand on its reputation something that Lakongo can't and the way he is going here never will be able to do. Presenting facts accepted by all, as up for debate is intellectually dishonest.
Moreover, the Kagame regime which backs Ntaganda is backed by Britain and America; that makes this BBC report very unexpected and Jean-Paul Kimonyo should not just rejoice when the truth suits him and loudly denounce the so-called "blaming Rwanda narratives" and "discrimination against the Tutsi in eastern Congo" when the truth does not suit him.

What the hell does Lakongo mean " the Kagame regime which backs Ntaganda is backed by Britain and America; that makes this BBC report very unexpected..." Again a totally unwarranted attack on the BBC but also the stupid assertion that Britain and America back the Kagame regime. They both recognise the government of Rwanda and both have suspended aid to Rwanda. Both Britain and the US recognise the government of the DR Congo and have not cut aid. Rwanda chose to leave the Francophone sphere of influence and join Commonwealth it is hardly surprising that Britain now looks to support Rwanda through aid.
If the Tutsi are discriminated against in the DRC, how come Nkundabatware and Ntaganda became generals in the Congolese army and Ruberwa became a vice-president in Congo? Goma is now completely destroyed.

Tutsi are discriminated against, the reasons are complex. That "Nkundabatware and Ntaganda became generals in the Congolese army..." and walked away, might suggest that they perceive  there to be a problem.  That of course means that there is a problem with regard to discrimination, perception in politics is everything. As for the claim Goma is destroyed that is just bloody stupid. My sources as a Scottish born ,New Zealander are far better it would seem than  Mr Lakongo's.
Does Jean-Paul Kimonyo call the acts of looting, raping, killing, fighting, a noble cause for democracy and inclusiveness? No, that is barbarism and savagery! In fact, the Bongando people of the DRC have a saying which goes that, "If a parrot which comes from a far away land perches on your mango tree, it will not spare any of your mangoes. It will cut them all, even those which are not ripe yet".

Yes once again we have a problem. I am assuming the looting, raping, killing, fighting referred to above are being laid at M23's door. The problem is that M23 arrived largely to late to get in a lot of Lakongo's allegations. FARDC whilst bravely fleeing  M23 made sure it got in its share of atrocities during the few days it had available to sack Goma.
This rings true! The BBC reported that as a teenager, Ntaganda fled to Ngungu, in eastern DR Congo, following attacks on fellow ethnic Tutsis in Rwanda. He attended secondary school there - but did not graduate. In 1990, at the age of 17, he joined the Rwandan Patriotic Front rebels in southern Uganda.
He fought, under the command of RPF leader - now Rwandan President - Paul Kagame, to end the genocide. After Rwandan unrest spilled over into DR Congo, he started to flip between fighting rebellions and serving in national armies - both Rwandan and Congolese. In 2002, he joined the rebel Union of Congolese Patriots in the Ituri district - and spent the next three years as Thomas Lubanga's chief of military operations.

Yes it rings true because it is fucking true as far as I can tell. It advances the argument presented here not one sensible bit. 
Ntaganda then joined yet another rebel group - the CNDP - under the leadership of Laurent Nkunda, a key power-broker in the east of the country who, like Gen Ntaganda, had started his military career in the Rwandan rebel force led by Kagame. With the backing of Rwanda, he went on to overthrew Gen Nkunda and took over the leadership of the CNDP militia.
Despite being wanted by the ICC for alleged war crimes, by 2009 Ntaganda was soldiering on the side of President Kabila - and was promoted to general. He was based in Goma, where he was in charge of up to 50,000 soldiers, many of them former rebels who remained personally loyal to him.
According to a UN investigation, Ntaganda has built a lucrative business empire for himself in North and South Kivu - reportedly collecting taxes from mines controlled by the soldiers under his command, charcoal markets and illegal checkpoints.

OK what we have is rambling, intellectually incompetent, if not dishonest attempt to highlight Rwandan maleficence in the DR Congo which is disputed by no one other than Rwanda anyway.   Ntaganda is not Congolese ? He certainly wasn't born in the DR Congo but citizenship is obtained by many means other than exclusively by birth. This question has not been conclusively answered by  Lakongo.   
2. WHAT IS M23?
The so called "M23 rebellion" traces its roots back to a peace deal signed on March 23, 2009 by the Congolese government and the "Congolese Tutsi" National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP) and 30 other armed groups operating in eastern Congo.

Well no not at all the roots go far deeper than the March 23 2009 peace deal it would be fare to say the name of the rebels comes from the peace deal though.
The CNDP was not the only one but it gained notoriety because it was a Rwandan-backed rebel group largely made up of former "Tutsi Congolese" soldiers who began an armed "rebellion" (just agitate that Tutsi face another genocide and everything immediately goes. What about the genocide the Rwandans, Hutu and Tutsi alike, have committed and still commit in Congo?) . But then the CNDP accepted a government offer to let them become a political party and integrate their troops back into the Congolese army.

I haven't got a clue what the bracketed statement means.
Now, three years later, a faction of the "Congolese Tutsi" mutineers say that the government isn't keeping its promises and has renewed the uprising in the form of the M23 rebellion. They've so far been fighting for control of the resource-rich North Kivu region, where Goma is a provincial capital.

This is largely common knowledge and I am sort of surprised that one could dispose of the identity of M23 in such a casual way. I am not arguing with what is said, I am saying it fails advance any understanding of the situation and is therefor pointless. 

3. SO FAR NO UPRISING AGAINST JOSEPH KABILA
I do not work for the government of Congo. But I can see that if Joseph Kabila was not properly elected by the Congolese people, the M23 would already be in Kinshasa now. But so far there is no uprising against Joseph Kabila. Instead, the "Congolese Tutsi" change their demands and claims like the weather.

The questions over Kabila's election are huge. There can be little doubt that electoral fraud occurred to a degree that would have invalidated the result in many more stable democracy's. The reality is that the West have a lot invested not least prestige wise in the ultimate success of democracy in the DR Congo. 6 million deaths have started to register. There have been many uprisings against Kinshasa. This is from the International Crisis Group. 

Kabila during 2006 presidential campaign promised reconstruction of infrastructure and consolidation of democracy, but very little progress made since December 2006. Socio-economic situation has deteriorated in most of the country. Political pluralism has shrunk, with opposition virtually excluded from governorships despite performance in 2006 elections. Brutal police crackdown on political-cultural movement Bundu dia Kongo in Bas-Congo and a string of arbitrary arrests of activists, journalists and parliamentarians March 2009 have jeopardized free expression. 

Médecins Sans Frontières reported on yet another ongoing uprising in Katanga Province yesterday. Uprisings are in fact endemic in the Congo.
First they were fighting for citizenship. After the citizenship was granted, they said they were fighting to eliminate the Hutu genocidists who represent a security threat to Rwanda. After the Hutu genocidists were almost completely neutralized, they changed their version again. They said they were fighting because other Congolese were excluding them.
After appointing them to top ranks in the army and government, the war did not end and they did NOT want to serve in other parts of Congo other than near the Rwandan border and gold and coltan mines. They changed their version yet again and said they were fighting for good governance.

All of this could of course be interpreted in an alternative way.
After the international community suspended all budgetary support for Rwanda and Uganda for lack of good governance, corruption and abuse of human rights (a Rwandan opposition leader and president of the Green party was beheaded not long ago in Rwanda), now they are saying they are better off administering eastern Congo by themselves. That is going too far, the unacceptable balkanization of the DRC.

Yes aid was suspended to both Uganda and Rwanda by some Western Governments. Uganda due to corruption and Rwanda due to support of M23 as for the " ( a Rwandan opposition leader and president of the Green party was beheaded not long ago in Rwanda )" Note the date in the report below from the San Francisco Bay View. 

First Vice President Andre Kagwa Rwisereka of the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda was found dead, his head almost completely severed from his body, in the wetlands of the Makula River near Butare, Rwanda, on the morning of July 14, 2010.

The London Guardian reported that Rwanda police spokesperson Eric Kariyanga said that Rwisereka had reportedly been carrying a lot of money and that robbery may have been the motive, but Habineza said, “No, it wasn’t a robbery, because they left his car, they left the keys to his car inside the car, they left the keys to his house inside the car with his national identity card inside the car. If they were thieves, they would have taken his car. If they were thieves, they would have taken the keys to his house and gone to take things from his house. They left the keys to his car and his house inside the car.”

So yet again I am calling bullshit on Lakongo and his analysis skills.
4. NOT TUTSI VULNERABLE IN CONGO, CONGOLESE ARE
The Tutsi have been the perpetrators of a genocide in Congo. It is unacceptable for them to use blackmail so as to entice the international community to sweep the crimes they have committed in Congo under the carpet and make themselves the untouchables - including Ntaganda who is wanted for crimes against humanity - and continue to loot the wealth of Congo, rape, kill, occupy land from which Congolese have been forcefully removed. Numerous UN Security Council reports have ascertained this and the fact that Rwanda now sits in the UN Security Council as a non-permanent member could not be more ironical.

This is just shit. It deserves nothing but our contempt. It is worse than shit it is racist shit. If I was to argue the Eastern DR Congo is the worst place in the world to be a woman with the highest rape statistics in the world ( not really disputed ) and then concluded all Congolese men are rapists I would be laughed at and deservedly so. I can see very little difference between that and the deformation of Tutsi by Lakongo with his stupid statement.
5. DOES UN WANT TO MAKE WAR IN CONGO?
We say the UN is an accomplice in the Rwandan and Ugandan war against Congo, backed by Britain and America. Despite the fact that Goma airport is still controlled by MONUSCO, the latter could not hide their complicity with Tutsi insurgents. MONUSCO did not engage M23 in battle in Goma, according to a South African soldier who did not give his name.

True MONUSCO didn't engage they have been rewarded for that by an international loss of confidence. There are others who didn't engage because they had a deadline to meet in Goma. Looting raping and pillaging were without doubt the overriding priority of FARDC and I have heard eye witness accounts. The UN are not accomplices they are just useless. As for the US and Britain allegations, you make sweeping claims and provide no evidence Lakongo. You are full of it. ( Shit that is ).
"We [MONUSCO] have had no trouble with M23, to be honest," he said (Pete Jones and David Smith 2012). That tells it all and justifies current protests throughout Congo against MONUSCO's presence.

A link would be nice or are you making it up ?
The African Union's position also remains ambiguous. The AU Commission chair Dlamini-Zuma, speaking in Washington after meeting Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, said "finger pointing" at Rwanda was not helpful, Reuters reported on 28 November 2012. Who does not know that Rwanda's implication is not a secret? According to the BBC, Rwanda even wanted to open new rebel front in South Kivu to demoralize the Congolese government (BBC, 29 November 2012 ).

Ambiguous situations create ambiguity by their nature. Absolutes are rare in international relations.
6. IS KAGAME COMPARING HIMSELF TO SADDAM?
First of all, Rwanda is now part of the UN system. Yet Rwanda strongly opposes a recent proposal by the UN that it would use surveillance drones to monitor the security situation along the border between Rwanda and Congo.

Rwanda joined the UN 18-09-1962 so I can only assume Lakongo is referring to the security council membership. Their opposition to drones finished from memory about a week ago.
In an article published by the News Of Rwanda on 11 January 2013, the American-backed Kagame regime went even so far as accusing America and other major powers of having used drones to surreptitiously to collect intelligence on Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's military; one of the reasons why developing countries oppose any attempt to have drones hovering above their territories.

WTF ? This is totally irrelevant.
Is Kagame comparing himself to Saddam Hussein? We know how Saddam Hussein ended: an ally of America turned an enemy of America. Western powers do not have permanent friends, they only have permanent interests. Mobutu came to the realization of this truth only weeks before he was overthrown. Kagame should use this time to make this truth sink in his heart and mind.

This sounds to my admittedly Western ears like a vote of support for a misunderstood Mobutu.

Mobutu Sese Seko... was the President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (also known as Zaire for much of his rule) from 1965 to 1997. While in office, he formed an authoritarian regime, amassed vast personal wealth, and attempted to purge the country of all colonial cultural influence, while also maintaining an  anti-communist stance.
Second, we find it very strange! If Kigali reckons that eastern Congo-based Hutu genocidists still represent a security threat to Rwanda, why wouldn't Kagame welcome the use of drones to monitor their movement?

Third, if drones are equipped with infrared technology which can detect troops hidden beneath forest canopy or operating at night, allowing them to track movements of armed militias, assist patrols heading into hostile territory and document atrocities and they are about 150 miles and are able to hover for up to 12 hours at a time, Kagame used almost the same methods to capture Goma recently after deploying several battalions of fighters, well equipped with GPS and night-vision equipment allowing them to fight at night, including the googles as well as 120 mm mortars (some say American made) who captured Goma and dislodged the Congolese army after a stiff resistance.
Is Kagame afraid that the same methods would be used against him or help capture Bosco Ntaganda by identifying his whereabouts? But then why would this happen to Kagame since Rwanda has now become the "CIA listening post" in the region from a station built on top of Mount Karisimbi?

As I said above this issue has been dealt with. I have detailed my views on the issue here and also here. 
Well, maybe Kagame's days are numbered if we have to believe American investigative journalist Howard French, who, on 14 January 2013, explained in an article published in the Newsweek Magazine "why the celebrated Rwandan president really deserves an indictment!".

If Lakongo thinks Kagame's days are numbered then he is a bigger fool than I have given him credit for here. Kagame faces no short term threat other than that faced by all the Crocodiles that being assassination.
"Will Rwanda explode again?" asks Howard French, concluding that, "the big, looming issue is whether Kagame will leave office in 2017, as the Constitution calls for. With so much to answer for, few expect a straightforward exit". Let us wait and see!

I doubt it.
- Antoine Roger Lokongo is a native of the Democratic Republic of Congo. He is a journalist and PhD candidate at the Centre for African Studies, School of International Relations, Peking University, Beijing, China.

At the risk of repeating my self " I doubt it. "  PhD candidate ? Peking University needs to up its game if that is the case.



Friday, January 25, 2013

DR Congo: More destruction


Médecins Sans Frontières reports



DRC: Thousands of Displaced Civilians at Risk in Katanga Province

DRC 2012 © Sandra Smiley/MSF
Patients in the inpatient department of an MSF hospital in Katanga Province.

NEW YORK, JANUARY 25, 2013—As tensions increase between government forces and Mai-Mai militias in Katanga province, southeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, all parties must avoid harming thousands of civilians who have fled into the surrounding bush, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said today.

The exact extent of the displacement is hard to quantify, but most of the villages along a 115-kilometer [about 71 miles] road from Shamwana to Dubie are empty, as are villages along a 70-kilometer [about 43 miles] stretch between Shamwana and Mpiana.

Below is a piece ( 2010 ) from Friendly Planet News blog. 



Hundreds in the village were killed, and those not killed, fled into the forest where they struggled for food and shelter. The UN estimated the destruction of villages along the Red Road to be at the 80% level. Now, even 5 years later, the villages still look like they had been bombed back into the stone age. People are living in primitive grass huts or the ruined remains of where their homes used to be. The church at Kyubo was a mere footprint in the tall grass with three wooden crosses in front. (The picture shows the church under construction a year after our first visit.)

It is instructive to note the term Red Road ( La Route Rouge ) also known as the Triangle of death (  La Triangle de la Morte ). The blood from the killings endured by the people of the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is said to have stained the road. This report  is also from the Katanga province in 2006.

NYONGA, KATANGA, 13 February 2006 (IRIN) - Two explosions from heavy weapons echoed from the eastern shore of Lake Upemba across the glassy waters to a tiny island formed from dead reeds. Displaced families were huddled there, under a makeshift shelter that was slowly sinking into the sludge. "From the sound of it, the army is pushing the Mayi-Mayi out of our villages," said Kulu Ngwande Abraham, an agronomist who fled his village by canoe with his wife and three children in mid-January. "We could soon be going back," he added. His wife, however, disagreed. "What happens when the army leaves and the Mayi-Mayi return?" she said. "We'll be worse off than we were." 

This remote wilderness of shallow lakes, marshes and quagmires near the source of the Congo River has become Katanga's newest battleground, as some 4,000 troops from the post-war army of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) - many with little or no training - chase cat-and-mouse-style the even less disciplined Mayi-Mayi rebels across the vast expanses of the north and centre of the province. In the process, tens of thousands of civilians are being displaced, though nobody really knows exactly how many. Médecins Sans Frontièrs (MSF) provides assistance to displaced people in more locations in Katanga than any other organisation. The medical charity said it knew of 92,000 people that were displaced in the last year, but many more may be hiding in the bush, terrified that the Mayi-Mayi would get them. 

                                           Displaced people on Lake Upemba, Katanga Province, DRC


And it would seem very little has changed from the same article.

This remote wilderness of shallow lakes, marshes and quagmires near the source of the Congo River has become Katanga's newest battleground, as some 4,000 troops from the post-war army of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) - many with little or no training - chase cat-and-mouse-style the even less disciplined Mayi-Mayi rebels across the vast expanses of the north and centre of the province.

"Civilians risk being caught up in the fighting and mistaken for combatants," said Christine Slagt, MSF project coordinator in Shamwana. "Some militia groups are preventing people from leaving the area." 

This week, MSF removed nonessential staff from its referral hospital in Shamwana, about 300 kilometers [about 186 miles] from the provincial capital Lubumbashi, leaving a skilled core team with surgical capacity to respond to an expected increase in war-wounded patients.

It would be nice to think that gains made could be held rather than the situation that existed in 2005 / 6 being replicated again in 2013.

MSF has been running the hospital since May 2006, providing people living in the Kiambi, Mitwaba, and Kilwa health zones with free health care. Medical teams treat malariatuberculosisHIV/AIDS, and malnutrition, and provide reproductive health services, mental health care, and emergency surgery.
The medical consequences of displacement are severe, with many patients now unable to return to health facilities to continue essential medical treatment. The majority of children in MSF nutritional programs have now defaulted, as have most patients receiving anti retroviral treatment for HIV/AIDS. A measles vaccination campaign in September was interrupted when people fled due to fighting in Kiambi, leaving thousands of children susceptible to an outbreak of the disease.

Over the last five years, MSF surgeons in Shamwana have operated on hundreds of women for internal injuries sustained during childbirth, but the current displacement has halted these efforts as well.

To make matters worse, the region is experiencing a peak in malaria due to the rainy season. Since October, MSF has treated on average nearly 1,000 patients per week for the disease, most of whom are children under 5 years of age.

Yet again the DR Congo demonstrates man's inhumanity and the innocent die. 

"We’re particularly concerned about the very vulnerable hiding in the bush who cannot access medical care," Slagt said. "Severe malaria can be fatal in children if left untreated and pregnant women with complications during labor are in a life-threatening predicament." 

The area of the conflict has a violent history. In 2005, clashes between Mai-Mai rebels and the military in Katanga resulted in a traumatized population. Many people witnessed or experienced violence and rape, had family members killed, fled because of fighting, or saw their homes and possessions go up in flames. Since then, there was relative calm in the region until recently.

Monday, January 21, 2013

Mali:Total Reconquest


The BBC reports

Mali conflict: France aiming for 'total reconquest'

France's military aim in Mali is its "total reconquest", French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has said.


"We will not leave any pockets" of resistance, he told French television.
France has sent in 2,000 troops to help Malian forces fight Islamist militants who now control the northern half of the country.
Mr Le Drian said the former Islamist stronghold of Diabaly had not yet been retaken, even though the militants withdrew from the town two days ago.
However, he added that "everything points to a favourable evolution of the situation in Diabaly in the coming hours".
The French are going to do what it takes to win this and I rather think they will.
Mr Le Drian also said during his interview that seven French citizens who had been taken hostage in Niger and Mali in recent years "are alive", and there had been "contacts with hostage-takers".
There had been concerns for their fate following France's decision to send troops into Mali earlier this month.
'Confused situation'
French troops have been pushing northwards and are now in the town of Niono, 50km (30 miles) south of Diabaly.
Last week French forces carried out air strikes on Diabaly, which had fallen to the Islamists on 14 January.
Diabaly's mayor told the BBC that Malian and French forces had been patrolling the outskirts of the town, which is believed to be the base for the largest concentration of Islamists in central Mali.
The BBC's Mark Doyle, in Niono, says military patrols are being sent from there into Diabaly.
Officials say the Islamists left Diabaly on Friday. However, the Malian military suspects the fighters are hiding in a nearby forest, our correspondent says.
I doubt that that is going to be a very safe refuge.
"The situation in the vicinity of Diabaly is confused for the moment," a French colonel who gave his name only as Frederic told our correspondent.
A senior Malian military figure cautioned that parts of Diabaly's population were sympathetic to the Islamists, and this made their task difficult.
Officials say Mali's army has also retaken the town of Konna, whose capture by rebels triggered the French intervention.
Jean-Yves Le Drian's comments to French television echo a similar sentiment by President Francois Hollande who said French troops would remain in the region for as long as is necessary "to defeat terrorism".
But French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius on Saturday stated that West African countries must "pick up the baton" in the offensive to drive out the Islamists.
Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara also called for more support for Mali, at a summit of West African leaders in Abidjan attended by Mr Fabius.
West African countries will be only to happy to.
The French foreign minister has said both Russia and Canada had offered logistical support.
Islamist militants in Algeria who seized a gas facility in the Sahara desert, killing foreign hostages, claimed the attack was in retaliation for the French intervention in Mali, though many analysts doubt this.
Quite probably a situation that was planned looking at the militants preparedness, the timing was unfortunate from a French perspective but it helped focus the attention of the world on the Mali situation.