Washington's Role in the Renewed Violence in DR Congo
James North | November 21, 2012
An M23 soldier guards weapons returned by the government's army in Goma city, November 21, 2012. Reuters/James Akena
At first, the latest awful news from the Democratic Republic of Congo sounds like just another installment of an ongoing saga common in the Western media, "Vicious African Tribal Factions Hate Each Other." Several thousand armed predators who call themselves the M23 Movement and are inappropriately described as "rebels" have just seized control of Goma, a regional capital, and the renewed fighting is adding to a death toll that has already risen above 5 million since the Second Congo War started in 1998.Most mainstream Western press reports are treating the upsurge in violence as a purely local or regional dispute, and the conflict may seem incomprehensible to outsiders. In fact, the tragedy is by no means a merely African affair. The outbreak of fighting is also the result of a colossal failure by US foreign policy–makers dating back to the mid-1990s, aided and abetted by an ill-led United Nations peacekeeping force that stood by as the M23 seized Goma.Rwanda borders DR Congo to the east, and is deeply implicated in the renewed fighting. Two UN investigations this year have already found that Rwanda is sustaining the M23 force; the most recent UN report, in October, charges that M23 is actually ultimately commanded by Rwanda's defense minister, James Kabarebe. Observers in Goma are reporting that M23 is armed with sophisticated weapons, including 120-millimeter mortars and night-vision goggles, which the group could not have acquired on its own.But ever since Bill Clinton's presidency, American officials have been mesmerized by the post-genocide leader of Rwanda, Paul Kagame. Over the past three administrations, US leaders, along with certain American journalists, have repeatedly and consistently overlooked or made excuses for Rwandan crimes.Rwanda boasts that its economic growth is turning it into a prosperous high-tech nation, an East African Singapore. In fact, the country is still poor, and 40 percent of the government's budget is foreign aid, which could give the United States, Britain and other large donors tremendous leverage. But despite the persuasive evidence earlier this year that Rwanda was behind M23, all the Obama administration did was cut a token $200,000 in military aid. In 2011, total US aid to Rwanda was $107.2 million; the 2012 figure is slated at $196.4 million.The M23 armed group is dangerous. A September report by Human Rights Watch found it guilty of "summary executions, rapes, and forced recruitment" in the areas of eastern Congo that it already controlled before it conquered Goma. Human Rights Watch added that "Rwandan officials may be complicit in war crimes through their continued military assistance to M23 forces."Visitors to Rwanda today are understandably impressed by the reconstruction since the 1994 genocide. Government agencies work efficiently, streets are clean, and investment is pouring in. The Millennium Village project in the Bugesera district of southeastern Rwanda is making significant advances in health and education, in what could be a model for other poor countries.These unquestionable achievements hide a more sinister reality. Rwanda first invaded the DR Congo in 1996, saying it intended to destroy the former genocidal killers who had been launching attacks while hiding in refugee camps just inside Congo. But in retaliating, the Rwandan army went far beyond a legitimate need to protect its own people. Rwandan soldiers chased and slaughtered refugees deep inside Congo, as painfully documented in A Continent for the Taking (2004), a vital book by journalist Howard French, who was there (see also Tristan McConnell, "Rwanda's Other Genocide," [1] The Nation, September 17, 2010).Despite the mounting evidence of Rwanda's dark side, its leader, Paul Kagame, continues to enjoy sympathy among certain American writers. As late as 2009, Philip Gourevitch, who has reported from the region for years, wrote an admiring account in The New Yorker, in which he noted without comment that Kagame won the 2003 election with 95 percent of the vote but failed to mention that Kagame had arrested his predecessor as president on questionable charges and jailed him for three years. Another otherwise able journalist, Stephen Kinzer, published A Thousand Hills: Rwanda's Rebirth and the Man Who Dreamed It (2008), an uncritical embarrassment that Kagame could have used as his campaign biography.Over the years, Rwanda has continued to intervene in eastern Congo. It claims it is there to prevent the resurgence of the génocidaires, but the former killers are no longer a significant force. Rwanda's real aim is more venal; it is stealing minerals from eastern Congo, which has significant deposits of gold, cassiterite and coltan. Rwanda's support for the M23 these days is mainly a cross-border thievery racket, which has been documented by UN inquiries.But the UN itself is also responsible for the tragedy in eastern Congo. The UN has an 18,000-strong multinational peacekeeping force already stationed in the country, including troops right in Goma. The UN force, known as Monusco by its French initials, stood by as M23 invaded and seized the city. Congolese critics have for years bitterly disparaged Monusco as merely "tourists." In an October report, the respected International Crisis Group also indicted the UN troops for passivity: "Despite Monusco's superiority in numbers and firepower, it has not opposed the advance of M23 and it has therefore failed to carry out the essential element of its mandate: to protect the civilian population."So far, the M23 invaders who are occupying Goma have not started to kill civilians, although that could change quickly, based on the armed band's history of murder and rape. But simply by launching attacks in an already fragile environment, the Rwandan/M23 alliance is in effect sentencing thousands of Congolese people to death.The country is the poorest in the world; 70 percent of its people are already undernourished. More than 95 percent of those who have died so far in Congo did not perish during actual combat (for more, particularly on the exploitation of Congo's mineral-rich Katanga province by Western multinationals, see North, "Economic Crimes in Congo," [3] The Nation, July 24, 2012). By not stopping M23 months ago, the UN peacekeeping force guaranteed that disease and hunger will claim even more victims from among the exhausted and weak civilians who are fleeing for their lives.The crisis in eastern Congo may look like an African failure, but it is not. The overwhelming majority of the Congolese people are not violent, and are simply trying to survive with courage and humanity. The crisis is an American failure. It is a failure by the world community. And without dramatic reversals in policy, innocent African people will continue to pay with their lives for mistakes made by the powerful, elsewhere.For more on how Washington is fueling conflicts abroad, read Phyllis Bennis on "Israel's War on Gaza [4]."__._,_.___
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The dictator Kagame at UN
Dictators like Kagame who have changed their national constitutions to remain indefinitely on power should not be involved in UN high level and global activities including chairing UN meetings
26 Nov 2012
Washington's Role in the Renewed Violence in DR Congo
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Thousands of Hutu murdered by Kagame inside Rwanda, e.g. Kibeho massacres
Kagame killed 200,000 Hutus from all regions of the country, the elderly and children who were left by their relatives, the disabled were burned alive. Other thousands of people were killed in several camps of displaced persons including Kibeho camp. All these war crimes remain unpunished.The British news reporters were accompanying Kagame’s fighters on day-by-day basis and witnessed these massacres, but they never reported on this.
25,000 Hutu bodies floated down River Akagera into Lake Victoria in Uganda.
The British irrational, extremist, partisan,biased, one-sided media and politicians have disregarded Kagame war crimes e.g. the Kibeho camp massacres, massacres of innocents Hutu refugees in DR. Congo. The British media have been supporting Kagame since he invaded Rwanda by organising the propaganda against the French over the Rwandan genocide, suppressing the truth about the genocide and promoting the impunity of Kagame and his cronies in the African Great Lakes Region. For the British, Rwanda does not need democracy, Rwanda is the African Israel; and Kagame and his guerilla fighters are heroes.The extremist British news reporters including Fergal Keane, Chris Simpson, Chris McGreal, Mark Doyle, etc. continue to hate the Hutus communities and to polarise the Rwandan society.
Kagame political ambitions triggered the genocide.
Kagame’s guerrilla war was aimed at accessing to power at any cost. He rejected all attempts and advice that could stop his military adventures including the cease-fire, political negotiations and cohabitation, and UN peacekeeping interventions. He ignored all warnings that could have helped him to manage the war without tragic consequences. Either you supported Kagame’ s wars and you are now his friend, or you were against his wars and you are his enemy. Therefore, Kagame as the Rwandan strong man now, you have to apologise to him for having been against his war and condemned his war crimes, or accept to be labelled as having been involved in the genocide. All key Kagame’s fighters who committed war crimes and crimes against humanity are the ones who hold key positions in Rwandan army and government for the last 15 years. They continue to be supported and advised by the British including Tony Blair, Andrew Mitchell MP, and the British army senior officials.
Aid that kills: The British Budget Support financed Museveni and Kagame’s wars in Rwanda and DRC.
Genocide propaganda and fabrications are used by the so-called British scholars, news reporters and investigative journalists to promote their CVs and to get income out of the genocide through the selling of their books, providing testimonies against the French, access to consultancy contracts from the UN and Kagame, and participation in conferences and lectures in Rwanda, UK and internationally about genocide. Genocide propaganda has become a lucrative business for Kagame and the British. Anyone who condemned or did not support Kagame’s war is now in jail in Rwanda under the gacaca courts system suuported by British tax payer's money, or his/she is on arrest warrant if he/she managed to flee the Kagame’s regime. Others have fled the country and are still fleeing now. Many others Rwandans are being persecuted in their own country. Kagame is waiting indefinitely for the apologies from other players who warn him or who wanted to help to ensure that political negotiations take place between Kagame and the former government he was fighting against. Britain continues to supply foreign aid to Kagame and his cronies with media reports highlighting economic successes of Rwanda. Such reports are flawed and are aimed at misleading the British public to justify the use of British taxpayers’ money. Kagame and his cronies continue to milk British taxpayers’ money under the British budget support. This started from 1986 through the British budget support to Uganda until now.
Dictator Kagame: No remorse for his unwise actions and ambitions that led to the Rwandan genocide.
No apologies yet to the Rwandan people. The assassination of President Juvenal Habyarimana by Kagame was the only gateway for Kagame to access power in Rwanda. The British media, politicians, and the so-called British scholars took the role of obstructing the search for the truth and justice; and of denying this assassination on behalf of General Kagame. General Paul Kagame has been obliging the whole world to apologise for his mistakes and war crimes. The UK’s way to apologise has been pumping massive aid into Rwanda's crony government and parliement; and supporting Kagame though media campaigns.
Fanatical, partisan, suspicious, childish and fawning relations between UK and Kagame
Kagame receives the British massive aid through the budget support, British excessive consultancy, sector wide programmes, the Tutsi-dominated parliament, British and Tutsi-owned NGOs; for political, economic and English language expansion to Rwanda. The British aid to Rwanda is not for all Rwandans. It is for Kagame himself and his Tutsi cronies.
Paul Kagame' actvities as former rebel
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