Israel & America: " And I think of all the good things That we have left undone "

Brian Eno writes at Popular Resistance

Today I Saw A Weeping Palestinian Man Holding A Plastic Bag Of Meat: It Was His Son

Brian Eno’s letter to America: WHY? I just don’t get it

Brian Eno is an artist, musical innovator, record producer for artists ranging from David Bowie to U2 and Coldplay. He has been a consistent supporter of Stop the War Coalition since it was first founded.

Dear All of You:

I sense I’m breaking an unspoken rule with this letter, but I can’t keep quiet any more.

Not quite sure what rule Eno is breaking. From the perspective of this blog I am a little off reservation insofar as I avoid Middle Eastern politics but I do not avoid issues such as genocide and there is no other description for the activities of Israel in Gaza.

Today I saw a picture of a weeping Palestinian man holding a plastic carrier bag of meat. It was his son. He’d been shredded (the hospital’s word) by an Israeli missile attack – apparently using their fab new weapon, flechette bombs. You probably know what those are – hundreds of small steel darts packed around explosive which tear the flesh off humans. The boy was Mohammed Khalaf al-Nawasra. He was 4 years old.

This act by Israel is in my opinion a crime against humanity. The most favorable interpretation possible is that it is a war crime.

A war crime is a serious violation of the laws and customs of war (also known as international humanitarian law) giving rise to individual criminal responsibility. Examples of war crimes such as:
 Murdering, mistreating, or deporting civilian residents of an occupied territory to slave labor camps
 Murdering or mistreating prisoners of war or civilian internees
 Forcing protected persons to serve in the forces of a hostile power
 Killing hostages
 Killing or punishing spies or other persons convicted of war crimes without a fair trial
 Wantonly destroying cities, towns, villages, or any object not warranted by military necessity

I suddenly found myself thinking that it could have been one of my kids in that bag, and that thought upset me more than anything has for a long time.

Then I read that the UN had said that Israel might be guilty of war crimes in Gaza, and they wanted to launch a commission into that. America won’t sign up to it.

There is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that Israel is guilty of war crimes. America is aware of this and is using its influence to silence western criticism of Israel and it will use its Security Council Veto to prevent this issue being considered by the UN. America has a tradition of preventing those who have committed the worst crime possible... genocide.... facing justice. Be it the Nazi scientists saved at conclusion of WWII or the Rwandan Hutu genocidairs given carte blanche by the Americans and French to kill around a million Tutsi over the course of 3 months in 1994.   

The terrible reality of  America's behaviour is that further crimes against humanity  are then facilitated by the survivors of such atrocities due to American guilt. Be it Israel in Gaza or Rwanda in the DR Congo today.

What is going on in America? I know from my own experience how slanted your news is, and how little you get to hear about the other side of this story. But – for Christ’s sake! – it’s not that hard to find out. Why does America continue its blind support of this one-sided exercise in ethnic cleansing? WHY? I just don’t get it. I really hate to think its just the power of AIPAC… for if that’s the case, then your government really is fundamentally corrupt. No, I don’t think that’s the reason… but I have no idea what it could be.

Eno needs to cut out the bullshit. This is not ethnic cleansing it is genocide. The term " ethnic cleansing " is a manifestation of just how fucking useless the media are. With regard to the Israel lobby ( AIPAC ) and American corruption Eno has perhaps unwittingly answered that question with his observation on the American medias complicity in keeping the truth from the public, mind you the US public have bought into this deception.

The America I know and like is compassionate, broadminded, creative, eclectic, tolerant and generous. You, my close American friends, symbolise those things for me. But which America is backing this horrible one-sided colonialist war? I can’t work it out: I know you’re not the only people like you, so how come all those voices aren’t heard or registered?

The Americans I know fit Eno's description but America collectively does not. That should not come as a surprise the Americans the world meets are the minority.

" More than half of Americans - 54per cent - have never traveled outside the U.S., and 35per cent admit that they do not even own a passport.

According to a survey of 2,105 Americans, conducted by CouponCodes4u, 41per cent of travelers who have never been abroad feel that everything worth visiting is in the U.S.

Only 15per cent of respondents said they planned on vacationing abroad this year.

Of those who said they would remain in their own state, 22per cent admitted that they had never ventured outside its borders before. "

I don't know if the statistics include military deployments by US personnel but I suspect they do and that would exasperate the situation.

How come it isn’t your spirit that most of the world now thinks of when it hears the word ‘America’? How bad does it look when the one country which more than any other grounds its identity in notions of Liberty and Democracy then goes and puts its money exactly where its mouth isn’t and supports a ragingly racist theocracy?

If the America Eno alludes too ever existed I have no idea when it was. Ask native or black Americans about that. America isn't so far from a theocracy and the ability of the majority of Americans to look critically at Americas behaviour as an international citizen is a joke. When the Global Financial Crisis hit the world was shown pictures of Americans who had lost their homes in trailer parks with the stars and stripes flying prominently. In most of the world the flags would have been burning but not in brainwashed batshit crazy America.

I was in Israel last year with Mary. Her sister works for UNWRA in Jerusalem. Showing us round were a Palestinian – Shadi, who is her sister’s husband and a professional guide – and Oren Jacobovitch, an Israeli Jew, an ex-major from the IDF who left the service under a cloud for refusing to beat up Palestinians. Between the two of them we got to see some harrowing things – Palestinian houses hemmed in by wire mesh and boards to prevent settlers throwing shit and piss and used sanitary towels at the inhabitants; Palestinian kids on their way to school being beaten by Israeli kids with baseball bats to parental applause and laughter; a whole village evicted and living in caves while three settler families moved onto their land; an Israeli settlement on top of a hill diverting its sewage directly down onto Palestinian farmland below; The Wall; the checkpoints… and all the endless daily humiliations. I kept thinking, “Do Americans really condone this? Do they really think this is OK? Or do they just not know about it?”.

They don't know, they don't want to known and worse they don't care that they don't know. That will however change.

" The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot for ever fence it out. "

As for the Peace Process: Israel wants the Process but not the Peace. While ‘the process’ is going on the settlers continue grabbing land and building their settlements… and then when the Palestinians finally erupt with their pathetic fireworks they get hammered and shredded with state-of-the-art missiles and depleted uranium shells because Israel ‘has a right to defend itself’ ( whereas Palestine clearly doesn’t). And the settler militias are always happy to lend a fist or rip up someone’s olive grove while the army looks the other way.

That is a very astute observation.  The process is useful from an Israeli perspective, it has destroyed any possibility of a two state solution. Just in case you are unaware of the scale of this theft be prepared to be shocked.

Remember that the map is now 14 years out of date. And the reason ?

" The two-state solution refers to a solution of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict currently under discussion, which calls for "two states for two peoples." The two-state solution envisages an independent State of Palestine alongside the State of Israel, west of the Jordan River.

The framework of the solution is set out in UN resolutions on the "Peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine", going back to 1974. The resolution calls for "two States, Israel and Palestine ... side by side within secure and recognized borders" together with "a just resolution of the refugee question in conformity with UN resolution 194". The borders of the state of Palestine are "based on the pre-1967 borders". The latest resolution in November 2013 was passed 165 to 6, with 6 abstentions. The countries voting against were Canada, Israel, Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Palau and the United States.

The Palestinians have "shown serious interest" in a two-state solution since the mid-1970s, and its mainstream leadership has embraced the concept since the 1982 Arab Summit in Fez.

Over the years, polls have consistently shown "respectable Israeli and Palestinian majorities in favor of a negotiated two-state settlement."

It will not happen. As Eno points out above " a whole village evicted and living in caves while three settler families moved onto their land "

By the way, most of them are not ethnic Israelis – they’re ‘right of return’ Jews from Russia and Ukraine and Moravia and South Africa and Brooklyn who came to Israel recently with the notion that they had an inviolable (God-given!) right to the land, and that ‘Arab’ equates with ‘vermin’ – straightforward old-school racism delivered with the same arrogant, shameless swagger that the good ole boys of Louisiana used to affect. That is the culture our taxes are defending. It’s like sending money to the Klan.

Regular readers of this blog will be aware that my partner's sister and three of my four daughters arrived in New Zealand in March this year. Much to my annoyance they had to go through the six week residential orientation programme required by immigration NZ for refugees ( I was totally wrong to oppose this and Immigration NZ were right to insist on it ). I met a family who arrived at the same time from Syria ( mum was fluent in English, actually an English teacher ) while my family were on the course. The family were Palestinians who had been evicted by Israel and tried their luck in Baghdad, America wrecked that relocation, so they tried Syria. We all know what is happening there ( unless of course we are Americans ). Dad is business man he had owned retail operations, he had employed people he wants to be a productive participant here. He belongs to us now and he will I am sure for the forth time in his life set up a business and contribute to the NZ community. 

Israel and America think of him as vermin:

" The term describes farm pests which raid farms as opposed to infest farms—mainly predators such as... "

Israel are far worse than vermin they raid and infest.

As for giving the Klan  Israel tax money Eno is correct the only difference being that the Klan saw a value in property and didn't always kill. 

But beyond this, what really troubles me is the bigger picture. Like it or not, in the eyes of most of the world, America represents ‘The West’. So it is The West  that is seen as supporting this war, despite all our high-handed talk about morality and democracy. I fear that all the civilisational achievements of The Enlightenment and Western Culture are being discredited – to the great glee of the mad Mullahs – by this flagrant hypocrisy. The war has no moral justification that I can see  - but it doesn’t even have any pragmatic value either. It doesn’t make Kissingerian ‘Realpolitik’ sense; it just makes us look bad.

Actually I disagree. New Zealand under previous administrations has disassociated its self from the " West " I am sure we will again. The West needs to disassociate from America. If America wishes to remain a nation caught in the amber of the 20th century so be it. Empires fall when they become irrelevant, ask Britain.

I’m sorry to burden you all with this. I know you’re busy and in varying degrees allergic to politics, but this is beyond politics. It’s us squandering the civilisational capital that we’ve built over generations. None of the questions in this letter are rhetorical: I really don’t get it and I wish that I did.

I get it Brian. I am just far more objective than you.

DR Congo: Victory

DW TV reports

M23 rebels to lay down arms in east Congo

                                                          Bisimwa called for the M23 militia to lay down their arms

The Democratic Republic of Congo's M23 rebels have ended an 18-month insurgency in one of Africa's deadliest conflict zones. As news spread, it became clear that this was what people had long been hoping for.

I guess reality had to strike home eventually although it has taken a hell of a long time. I can no longer link to the M23 propaganda site Congo DRC News although I have several articles they published reproduced on this blog should any reader feel the urge to indulge in a bit of batshit crazy. I am actually going to miss the site and the morons who wrote for it, there was a certain satisfaction knowing that no matter how uninformed my views on the conflict were they at least made a lot more sense than anything M23 had to contribute. 

   

The M23 group surrendered Tuesday, saying it would "end its rebellion" and instead pursue their goals "through purely political means." The announcement came just hours after more than 200 rebels were coaxed from their hilltop positions within the M23 strongholds of Tshanzu and Runyoni early Tuesday morning.

I would imagine it didn't take much coaxing in the end.

Group leaders called on fighters to lay down their arms following a fortnight of fighting that cornered the militia in heavily wooded hills along the border with Rwanda and Uganda.

"The chief of staff and the commanders of all major units have requested to prepare troops for disarmament, demobilization and reintegration on terms to be agreed with the government of Congo," M23 leader Bertrand Bismwa said in a statement.

Bismiiwa has as usual got it wrong. M23 have been defeated they will take what ever terms are offered them. Those terms should and I think will include criminal indictments for the M23 leadership, I hope that they are handed to the ICC. 

'Victory for the DRC'

In response to the announcement, government spokesperson Lambert Mende commented that, "It is a total victory for the DRC." The rebels, he added, who had been flushed from the hills, fled to neighboring Rwanda and Uganda.

More than 80 M23 rebels crossed the border into Uganda, Ugandan army spokeperson Paddy Ankunda said, adding the men were being held until a diplomatic decision was made on their fate.

That decision will not be an easy one.  

The army began a major offensive against the rebels on October 25, gradually claiming the rebel-held strongholds until the intransigent M23 militia was forced into the mountains about 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of the regional capital, Goma.

By Sunday (03.11.2013), the insurgents had called for a ceasefire, but the army pursued their assault along with United Nations troops. The UN special force had up until then been assisting the military with aerial reconnaissance, intelligence and planning, but joined fighting after being given the go-ahead to attack the mountain region.

The Intervention ( Africa ) Brigade deserve special recognition. They have saved MONUSCO and the UN mission to the eastern DR Congo. I would expect that the UN may well rethink how it operates peace keeping missions as a result.

Since the ceasefire was called, the UNHCR has received over 5,000 Congolese to their transit center, 20 kilometers inside Uganda. That, Lucy Beck, the UNHCRs external relations officer told DW "was the biggest amount of refugees we've ever transported in one day from the border." Since fighting began, she added, "The organization had assisted more than 75,000 people who arrived in Uganda from the DRC." 

There must be repercussions for the M23 leadership, thousands have died War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity have been perpetuated by M23, there is no place for impunity, we the world owe the victims justice.

An issue of amnesty

At the SADC meeting of regional leaders being held in South Africa on Tuesday, DRC President Joseph Kabila said he would sign a peace deal within the coming days if the M23 rebel group laid down their arms.

Russell Feingold, US special envoy to the Great Lakes Region of Africa, said the deal needed to raise the issue of amnesty and reintegration of rebels into the army to ensure its durability.

Russell Feingold should resign, there is no room for an amnesty and there is no place for the rebels in the Congolese Army. Jason Stearn blogs,

" There is no doubt that the FARDC is performing much better now than in 2012. Its command structure has been changed and streamlined, beginning with the appointment of General Lucien Bahuma as regional commander in June 2012, and of General François Olenga as land forces commander in December 2012. These commanders have paid more attention to making sure logistics were in place and salaries paid on time, boosting soldiers' morale and enabling the newly-trained commando battalions to do their job. Then, in January 2013, over a hundred officers––many of them from the Kivus––were invited to Kinshasa under the pretext of a seminar on army reform (they are mostly still in Kinshasa today). This simplified the military hierarchy in North Kivu, which had become clogged up with competing chains of command, a coterie of high-ranking officers embezzling funds and issuing contradictory orders. "

In short there is no place for the rebels and I doubt any of the FARDC leadership or rank and file would want them. The Congolese army is starting to look and act like a professional military, why would anyone want to destroy that progress ?

"In a region that has suffered so much, this is obviously a significant positive step in the right direction," he said. Those suspected of serious human rights violations, he added, should be sought out and not aided through amnesty.

Obama needs to recall this fool. Any human right violation is serious, I would have thought that might have dawned on the idiot.

Support for a peace accord

In a show of support, women in the capital, Kinshasa, dressed in white and chanted songs praising the country's leader and the army. One woman told DW, "We've suffered so long from this war. Now we are very happy." Another added, "There will be change now. The president promised that when the war was over. Now we have to love each other."

I await Alex Engwete's take on this with considerable interest. 

In response to the announcement, the United States said it was a "significant positive step" for eastern Congo, a region that has endured more than 15 years of conflict as competition for gold, copper and cobalt intensified along with cross-border ethnic tensions.

As the conflict with the M23 draws to a close, Martin Kobler, head of the 19,850 UN backed peacekeeping mission in the DRC, said their efforts would now turn to the countless number of armed groups operating in the east, including the Rwandan Hutu FDLR that fled across the border after the 1994 genocide.

"We have teeth, and we are using those teeth," Kobeler said from Pretoria, making reference to the 3,000-troop intervention brigade currently stationed in the DRC.

Martin Kobler is spot on and he has picked his next target well. I have seen many fools suggesting that the FDLR have been allied to the Intervention Brigade and even bigger fools attempting to justify the existence of these genocidal killers. They must be next armed group to be brought to justice. The International Community needs to make it very clear that you can run but we will never stop looking and justice will be done. 

While many peace deals have been signed in the past, there is hope this recent accord will stand firm and send a message to other rebel groups across the DRC and the greater African continent.

What accord ? 

"The military victories over the M23 will send a very strong message to the many other armed groups operating in the east," said Stephanie Wolters of the Institute of Strategic Studies in Pretoria.

"It may prompt them to consider the advantages of a negotiated solution over a drawn-out military campaign."

I doubt it. 

" The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct."
Marcus Tullius Cicero 

DR Congo: " The feeding hands of western promise hold her by the throat "

The Irish Times reports

Congo’s army and rebels clash near border despite calls for peace

Congolese soldiers rest while being deployed against the M23 rebels near Bunagana, north of Goma. A rapid army advance in recent weeks has driven rebels from towns and cornered them in the hills along the Ugandan border. Photograph: Kenny Katombe/Reuters

Congolese troops and M23 rebels bombarded each other near the Ugandan border yesterday and international envoys called on both sides to cease fire and allow a peace deal to take hold.

I think it might be time for the International Envoys to shut the fuck up, in this situation I would have though that the envoys might have had some idea about the feelings of the Congolese people, but just in case they don't let me correct that for them.

Radio Okapi did a survey and the results although not scientific are fairly conclusive, 83% voted for FARDC ( The Congolese Army ) to keep on killing the M23 thugs until they surrender, there is bloody huge difference between a ceasefire and an unconditional surrender This blog has argued for some time that M23 have two options, surrender or death and quite frankly I think death might well be the better option going forward, however M23 has a tendency to hide behind and kill civilians so I hope an unconditional surrender will be agreed to soon. 

M23 Sunday asked these fighters to stop military hostilities against the FARDC but fighting continued on the ground. According to you:

• The FARDC continue their offensive until the complete surrender of the M23 (83%, 1,214 Votes)
• The M23 would rather sign the surrender instead of a simple declaration of cease-fire (13%, 197 Votes)
• Both sides must stop the hostilities to reach a political agreement (4%, 51 Votes)

Total votes: 1462

Congolese authorities accused the rebels of shelling the frontier town of Bunagana and said it showed M23’s weekend ceasefire declaration was worthless. The rebels said they were ready to sign a peace deal but that they had been attacked. Thousands have fled into Uganda to escape the fighting but some have been wounded by a shell fired across the border.

Killing non combatants a standard M23 tactic. They are ready to sign a peace deal having murdered, raped and robbed their way through the Kivus and now the Congolese government should sign a peace deal with them after they have been defeated in the field. What planet do these fucking clowns think they are on. 

A rapid army advance in recent weeks has driven rebels from towns and cornered them in the hills along the Ugandan border, raising the prospect of an end to a 20-month rebellion.

M23 has been defeated. There, despite the stupidity of envoys demanding a resumption of peace negotiations, is no nation on earth that should be subject to that demand, the world is clear on not negotiating with terrorists and yet here we have a demand that the DR Congo go into negotiations with these criminal terrorists. This is of course hypocrisy but even worse it is racism.  

South Africa is hosting leaders from the Great Lakes region and southern Africa to back Ugandan-sponsored peace efforts, but the latest violence shows the two sides remain far apart.

Not quite, South Africa are hosting a joint summit of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) where one of the subjects on the agenda will be the M23 rebellion, that is a hundred miles away from holding a meeting to back the " Ugandan sponsored peace efforts " 

“This is not fighting, it is bombs launched by M23 targeting the population of Bunagana,” said Congo army spokesman Col Olivier Hamuli. Bunagana was the last rebel-controlled town to be recaptured last week and rebels are still in the hills nearby. A Reuters reporter said government troops had seized Mbuzi, a strategic hilltop above Bunagana, yesterday after hitting it with tank and rocket fire.

This as I have said seem's to be a standard M23 tactic, as soon as things start going against them they resort to terrorising the civilian population. In the early days of this conflict M23 resorted to shelling Rwanda in an attempt to widen the conflict, Jason Stearns blogs 

" Since August 22, a series of artillery shells have fallen in Goma and Rwanda, killing civilians on either side of the border. (The Rwandan government chronology of events is here.) The UN has now told the press that at least some of the mortars that fell in Rwanda came from M23 positions. According to one UN official in Goma I spoke to, their troops could observe the trajectory of the mortars."

At the time I suspected this was done on Rwandan orders and my position has not altered but... also from Jason Stearns at Congo Siasa we have this,

" But it may be the third factor that was the determining one––the absence of support from Rwanda. According to several reports from the frontlines, despite indications of some cross-border support in the Kibumba area, the M23 was largely left to its own devices. "The Rwandans just wouldn't pick up their phone calls," one source close to the M23 leadership told me. This is a drastic change from August, when many sources––the UN, Human Rights Watch, and foreign diplomats––all reported hefty support coming across the border. "

If as Stearns suggests Rwanda have abandoned M23 to their inevitable fate it makes sense that they will try and cause as much mayhem as possible to escape the consequences of a direct firefight with FARDC. 

On Sunday M23 announced a ceasefire – a declaration Hamuli described as a lie, saying the army would pursue the rebels. Congo government spokesman Lambert Mende said four civilians were killed when a shell landed in Bunagana’s market.

M23 are not in a position to announce anything other than an unconditional surrender, that the media have not understood this is perhaps understandable, that the various diplomatic players seem to have forgotten that war is at an extreme end of diplomatic negotiations spectrum and an end of the spectrum that has different rules to more conventional forms of diplomatic negotiations is pathetic

M23 political leader Bertrand Bisimwa complained that the army had attacked its positions with heavy weapons.

Yes, if you turn up to a gun fight that you started armed only a knife you really can't expect very much sympathy, that said " His Excellency " Ali Musagara,  M23 Minister of Youth, Culture, Sports and recreation ( I jest not ) has declared that he is willing to even up the playing field for M23,  

" I cherished the M23 movement to the point that I would only leave if I see the precarious situation the DRC is currently in getting better, or unless I'm dying on the battlefields."

Time to die " Your Excellency "

“We’re only fighting to defend our position. That’s the logic of war,” he said.

" Logic is like the sword - those who appeal to it, shall perish by it."  

Samuel Butler

Bisimwa might want to think about that if he is still among the living.

Bisimwa said the group was ready to sign the peace deal: “All the items [in the talks] were finished and there’s no problem anymore, why is the government refusing to sign?”

The Government obviously has a different view on the logical outcome of this war and it is not a defensive one.

Envoys monitoring the conflict for the United Nations, European Union, African Union and United States jointly urged both sides not to undo progress made in the talks in Uganda, saying M23 should renounce its rebellion as agreed and the army should hold off from further military action for now.

Oh fuck off.

However, Mr Mende said the army would continue its advance to “wipe out” rebel positions and Congo’s government would assess progress at the talks in South Africa before taking any steps at the Ugandan-hosted peace talks.

Exactly and then there will be no need for peace talks. M23 have chosen the diplomacy of the gun, they have committed both War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity, if they are to stupid to realise it is over and take the only option available to them so be it, but we the world owe the people of the Eastern DR Congo our support, not their tormentors in M23. 

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” 
Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

DR Congo Crimes against humanity

All Africa reports

Congo-Kinshasa: 'The Children Could Die' in Eastern DRC Fighting

Bukavu — Humanitarian agencies working in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo have been overwhelmed following a massive displacement triggered by fighting between the Congolese army (FARDC) and rebel movement M23 in North Kivu.

"The situation is truly precarious. There is no medicine, no food. Children could die. People are spending the night outside, each one beside their baggage, and it is very cold," says Roger Manegabe, head of a family who managed to reach Bukavu from North Kivu.

The sad truth is children will die and they will die pointlessly. There is another name for that murder. It is also a crime against humanity.

"We're missing school. We're hungry, there's no drinking water, there's no electricity. I'm 16 years old and war is all I've known from the time I was born. What will become of us?" said Fiston, Manegabe's son.

Since the start of the year, conflict in the two Kivu provinces -- militias in South Kivu have also clashed -- has exacerbated an already dire humanitarian situation and uprooted nearly 650,000 people, according to U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) spokesperson Adrian Edwards.

And one must ask for what. Nothing more it would appear other than the continuing instability of the region that prevents development, the rule of law but allows for the illegal appropriation and exploitation of the regions mineral wealth. 

Manegaba's family is among some 250,000 civilians newly displaced since April in North Kivu, and a further 339,000 in South Kivu. According to Edwards, during this period more than 40,000 people also fled to Uganda and 15,000 others to Rwanda. And since August, Burundi has received nearly 1,000 new Congolese refugees.

Rebel fighters captured Goma, the province's largest city, on Nov. 20, and Sake the following day, before their advance stalled.

Yet even that pointless piece of adventurism created thousands more refugees. 

M23 was launched on Mar. 12 with a mutiny of Congolese army officers and soldiers. It is now putting forward a broad set of demands covering politics, social issues, human rights and governance. The movement is demanding direct talks with Congolese President Joseph Kabila as a precondition for retreating from Goma.

The group's political spokesperson, Jean-Marie Runiga Lugerero, held a preliminary meeting on Sunday Nov. 25 with Kabila in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, following a regional summit on the crisis in eastern DRC.

More than 30,000 people who fled the Kanyaruchinya sector in North Kivu have found refuge at a camp in Mugunga, swelling the total numbers there to 40,000. They told the UNHCR representative in the province, Lazard-Etienne Kouassi, who visited the camp on Nov. 22, that they had not received food since their arrival and that they were eager to go back to their villages.

To what though ? It would appear that there has been considerable looting.