Child Soldiers

A few are missing - Uganda, although not the state use of children, but entities within Uganda use and recruit children to fight in Sudan.





US: Press Allies to End Use of Child Soldiers


Report Lists Repeat Offenders, but Military Aid Continues

June 27, 2011
HRW



(New York) - The United States should suspend military assistance to countries using child soldiers, Human Rights Watch said today.

On June 27, 2011, the US State Department released a list of six governments that use child soldiers in violation of US legislation adopted in 2008: Burma, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Five of the countries - excluding Burma - receive US military assistance.

"The US strategy of just telling countries to stop using child soldiers is not working," said Jo Becker, children's rights advocate at Human Rights Watch. "So long as they keep getting US military assistance, these countries have little incentive to stop recruiting children."

The Child Soldiers Prevention Act of 2008 prohibits governments using child soldiers from receiving US foreign military financing, military training, and several other categories of US military assistance. The six countries identified in the new 2011 Trafficking in Persons report for using child soldiers were all included in the first State Department list in June 2010. In October, President Barack Obama issued national interest waivers to allow Chad, Congo, Sudan, and Yemen to continue to receive military aid despite their use of child soldiers.

Human Rights Watch called on the Obama administration not to issue blanket waivers to countries violating the Child Soldiers Prevention Act unless the governments sign agreements with the United Nations to end their use of child soldiers and take concrete steps to implement these agreements.

The administration contends that the military assistance it provides to Somalia is peacekeeping assistance that is not covered by the law. On June 22, Senators Richard Durbin of Illinois and John Boozman of Arkansas introduced legislation that would amend the Child Soldiers Prevention Act to prohibit peacekeeping operations assistance to governments of countries that recruit and use child soldiers.

In Congo, government forces actively recruit children and have hundreds of children in their ranks. The government has promoted military officers who have been charged - or even convicted - with using child soldiers and has failed to cooperate with the United Nations in finalizing a plan to end its recruitment and use of child soldiers.

In Southern Sudan, which will gain independence from Sudan in July, the Sudan People's Liberation Army has continued to recruit children, according to credible reports received by Human Rights Watch. It has also failed to carry out fully a 2009 agreement to demobilize all children from its ranks.

Yemeni government forces have recruited children as young as 14 and government-affiliated militia have also used children as soldiers.

In Chad, a February 2011 report issued by the UN secretary-general documented ongoing recruitment of children by the Chadian army, including the recruitment of Sudanese refugee children. The government signed an agreement with the UN on June 14 committing itself to end all child recruitment, to release all children from its military and security forces, and to allow UN monitoring of its military installations.

The Chad agreement is a positive step, but progress in other countries has been too slow, Human Rights Watch said.

"Congress was clear in its intent that the US should not be militarily assisting governments that use child soldiers in their forces," Becker said. "Last year the administration gave these governments a pass. It shouldn't do so again."





 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
human rights

Yes, I am sorry but you are guilty of spying for Norway (I wonder whether there is big money in spying for Norway, and if there is, what is it Norway is spying on.  I am quite sure Congo is warm, Norway is cold.  Norway has reindeer and snow, Congo is war.  Norway has ice and cold.  Norway is warm.  Norway has 12 men in their army, Congo is warm and everyone has a machete or weapon.)  And now you must pay us 300 million and then we will shoot you.  Oh, and you don't have to pay the entire 300 million, your employer - Norway - can pay the rest.

Sounds like extortion.



DR Congo overturns death sentences for Norwegians


22 April 2010 13:27 UK
BBC


A court in Democratic Republic of Congo has overturned the death sentences passed on two Norwegians convicted of murdering their driver.

Former soldiers Joshua French, who holds joint British-Norwegian nationality, and Tjostolv Moland were also found guilty of spying for Norway. The men had been sentenced to death by firing squad.

The two men lost an appeal at a military tribunal on 3 December 2009.

They and the Norwegian state had also been ordered to pay $500m (£300m) in damages.

But a military judge said the court had not followed the correct procedures and ordered a new trial, reports the AP news agency.

Last year, Norway's foreign minister said he had been assured that the death sentences would not be carried out.

The rulings drew immediate international protests amid claims of miscarriages of justice.

Moland and French have been held since May 2009 when their Congolese driver was found shot dead.

Both men denied murdering Abedi Kasongo, 47, maintaining that he was shot and killed when their car was ambushed by gunmen on the road near the city of Kisangani.





 
 
 
 
 
Congo

Congo and Death

The Unnumbered Dead



Jan 21, 2010 08:20 EST
Reuters


The simple answer to the question of how many people died in Congo’s civil war is “too many”.

Trying to get a realistic figure is fraught with difficulties and a new report suggests that a widely used estimate of 5.4 million dead – potentially making Congo the deadliest conflict since World War Two – is hugely inaccurate and that the loss of life may be less than half that.

The aid group that came up with the original estimate unsurprisingly says the new report is wrong.

The problem is the way estimates are reached.

One way is to do a body count, but that is next to impossible in a country like the Democratic Republic of Congo. Very few of the victims are shot, blown up or otherwise die as a result of violence. Most succumb to disease or malnutrition. But then who died as a result of the war and who would have died anyway in a country where survival is normally so tough?

That is where the other methodology comes in. It is based on using the difference between the rate at which people were dying before the war and the mortality rate once it has started. It should indicate the number of those who have died as both a direct and indirect result of the war. This sort of calculation led to the figure of 5.4 million dead in Congo.

The problem is that if you get the wrong mortality rates, even by a small margin, the estimate can be way off. That is what the Human Security Report Project says happened with the Congo figures. The International Rescue Committee stands by its estimate.

Basing estimates on mortality rates can also have odd consequences – for instance mortality rates for those being helped by aid agencies can fall to below pre-war levels in places where living conditions were already very poor – meaning that not only could the death toll fall over time but in a sense more people might be alive as a result of a war.

The Congo figures have been nowhere near as controversial as calculations for Iraq or Darfur, but once figures are repeated often enough they tend to become established and treated almost as fact.

The United Nations estimate for the Darfur death toll of 300,000 is another example of how figures can enter common usage. It originally came from John Holmes, U.N. under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, in April 2008.

“A study in 2006 suggested that 200,000 had lost their lives from the combined effects of the conflict. That figure must be much higher now, perhaps half as much again,” Holmes said, although he later described it as a “reasonable extrapolation”.

But because mortality rates were used in the 2006 study, the figure didn’t have to be much higher. It might even have been lower in some areas because of the immense efforts of humanitarian workers in reducing mortality rates for the millions of displaced.

While potentially wrong, such figures could have a use in drawing the eyes of the world to tragedies and finding the resources needed to end them. The question is whether, when challenged, they undermine the credibility of those who produce them? Then again, does it matter if they are wrong? Are those who challenge them at risk of harming efforts to save lives?

 
 
 
 
Congo

One More Reason the UN is bad for your health!

The UN, Working for You (in the Congo)






Human rights expert calls joint UN-Congolese army action ‘catastrophic’


15 October 2009 – Government troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have killed, raped or mutilated scores of civilians this year in the context of “catastrophic” joint military operations with United Nations peacekeepers to weed out mainly Rwandan Hutu rebels, a UN human rights expert said today.

“Congolese soldiers shot and beat to death at least 50 Rwandan Hutu refugees, and burnt their camp to the ground in an attack in April 2009,” UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions Philip Alston said in a press statement at the end of an 11-day investigation in which he travelled widely in the vast country.

“Some 40 women were abducted from the camp. A small group of 10 who escaped described being gang-raped, and had severe injuries – some had chunks of their breasts hacked off,” he added of the atrocities in the Shalio area of North Kivu province in the east, where a joint DRC-UN military operation has been launched against Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR) rebels.

“An immediate, independent, and thorough investigation into these killings is essential,” Mr. Alston said, citing emerging reports of other very recent killings by the DRC’s army.

“Alarm bells are ringing loudly in the DRC,” he warned of the general situation throughout the country, calling on the Government and the international community to take immediate preventative measures to avert further predictable bloodshed.

The joint operation in Kivu has been so poorly carried out that the FDLR has easily re-entered villages abandoned by the Congolese and UN forces to commit brutal retaliation massacres of civilians, Mr. Alston said.

“From a human rights perspective, the operation has been catastrophic. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced, hundreds of villages burnt to the ground, and at least 1,000 civilians have been killed. Women and girls have literally been raped to death in the most gruesome attacks imaginable.”

The nearly 19,000-strong uniformed force of the UN mission in DRC, known as MONUC and set up in 2000 to help restore peace after years of multiple civil wars, announced in May that it was supporting the army in efforts to flush out the rebels.

The mission’s public information director Kevin Kennedy, replying yesterday to charges by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) of MONUC silence on human rights abuses, said the mission brings the information to the attention of the military authorities, and recommends disciplinary steps such as demotion as well as judicial measures.

Some 50 MONUC operating bases have been put in place in the most sensitive zones to protect the civilian population, he added.

Mr. Alston, an independent expert who reports to the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council, also investigated killings in Orientale province in the far north, bordering Sudan and Uganda, where Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels have infiltrated. He called the situation “a powder keg,” with neither the Government nor the international community paying sufficient attention to it.

“The Government claims to have pushed the Lord’s Resistance Army out of the Congo and is ready to declare victory. But the sad reality is that the LRA is still very much in business in Orientale. Killings and kidnappings continue apace,” he said.

The LRA essentially consists of children abducted by Joseph Kony, a man wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes. “Far from being finished off, the LRA has turned itself into a regional problem that now requires a regional solution, but none is apparently contemplated,” the Special Rapporteur warned.

He voiced particular concern that the Government has recently dispatched troops to the area “who are best known for raping and killing civilians and looting in other parts of the country.” Since September 2008, over 1,200 civilians have been brutally killed by the LRA, with many killings predictable revenge massacres after Government and UN military operations.

Both the Government and UN failed in their responsibility to prioritize civilian protection in their planning, he concluded. Some of the most vicious LRA killings occurred after an operation conducted in cooperation with Uganda and the South Sudan People’s Liberation Army, with United States logistical support, he added.

Turning to the western regions, Mr. Alston warned that with the approach of elections next year, Kinshasa, the capital, and Bas Congo province are ripe for a repetition of the political killings of hundreds of civilians committed by security forces from 2006-2008.

“The highly repressive State apparatus in these areas was brought home to me dramatically when I was prevented from meeting with witnesses and victims by officials and armed police in Bas Congo,” he said.

Across the country, impunity for killings is so pervasive that even Bosco Ntaganda, wanted by the ICC for using child soldiers, holds a senior command position in current military operations.

“Men dressed anonymously in off-the-rack green military uniforms, lacking any identifying insignia, use brutality and the power of their position to prevail over the law in the Congo,” he added. “The Government doesn’t even know how many soldiers it has. Even a change as simple as requiring soldiers to wear uniforms that identify their name and unit would go a long way to combating impunity.”

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
UN

Congo: Mining Death

Reality, Idealism, practicality, naivete ... what world do we, should we, must we operate in. Does it matter.

Should we be practical about resources? If so, we need them, they don't, we take them, whatever the cost. As long as we get the resources - practical.

Should we be realistic? Resources are needed, everyone wants them, if we don't get them, someone else will and we will lose out. We need to do whatever it takes to get what we need.

We is anyone you may be - Euros, Americans, Russians, Chinese ...

What of the consequences of the actions by the Euros, Americans, Russians, or Chinese? Practically the consequences are not material to the act. Realistically, consequences are factored in, but do not play a role - the minerals are needed and whatever method is reasonable to extracting the resource, is appropriate.

Should human rights be considered - not if we are practical or realistic. HR need not be factored in. HR may be, but, what is more critical is the resource.

Who do we turn to when the poorest and weakest are taken advantage of? When the resources of the poorest are ripped away and fashioned into an industrial engine? Who should step in, should anyone?

Making a point about the human loss is trite while I sit here, and they are killed in their sleep, on the streets, the mines, or in their schools. Yet, it is so easy to appear the ever caring liberal - whether European or American: condemn the greed and capitalism, seek boycotts of the uncaring regimes, ask the UN to investigate, request Congress to hold hearings, plead with the public to donate to the needy, and or to stop buying whatever it is the various countries produce. How quaint and so fucking stupid. I am not sure what is more pathetic - those who adhere to the preceding philosophy, or those who believe the UN can accomplish anything.

Do you use a cell phone? Do you have a Movado watch? Rolex? Tennis bracelet? Diamond ring or earrings? Any other jewelry? Computers/televisions or other electronic equipment? If so, you are one of the millions who are responsible for the oppression and devastation of the African countries and the rape of its resources, and death of innocents. So why not call the Secretary General on your cell phone while checking your Rolex for the time to ensure you catch him before he gives the press conference and you end up having to watch it from your television in the car. Hypocrite? - much worse than just hypocrisy.

For nearly eight years these whiny assholes have complained about everything Bush has done, repeated every dollar figure as to cost of the war, mentioned the stock market, or unemployment, and felt compelled to give exact numbers as to the dead in Iraq ... yet they could not, in eight years, spend anytime on learning about Africa, and instead relied upon DiCaprio and 'Blood Diamonds' for their African history lesson, all the while buying products made with mineral resources found only in African countries where this mayhem and murder occur hourly.

Not to make you feel too bad - it is not just your ignorance that has fed the massacres and death throughout Africa - it is also the UN, and the Euros. The largest mining companies are Australian, German, French, English - or if registered elsewhere, the investors or directors are in large part from any one of the aforementioned countries. Why do genocides occur - because it is easier and more practical to allow a genocide in Rwanda than allow it to spill over into regions where mining activities go on (Congo). The French had a great deal at stake in Congo in the 90s ... and they still do, but apparently events have spiralled out of control and they are attempting to put the genie back in the box. In the alternative, a genocide would clean things up and allow them to get business back on track.

The Chinese have invested heavily, as have the French - the new Heart of Darkness is not the Belgique (although they are not free of responsibility in this current round of raping Africa) ... it is the Chinese and the French, with a smattering of Australian and English, German, and Russian involvement. But where are the mean and cruel oppressive Americans in all this? Largely not involved, and what role American companies play is relatively minor compared to the French and Chinese.

So why not go to the UN and demand they investigate? I have to ask - are you really stupid or have you just practiced a lot? The Chinese and the French will veto ANY and ALL efforts. if they do not, the Germans or Russians will. And if none of those four veto anything - the British will.

So why not just go to the media? The owners of the media conglomerates - have investments in companies that are invested in, of all places - Africa, and in mining. Do you honestly believe, or were you hit too many times as a child - that the main stream media will push these stories, give them the space they deserve?

So - what to do? I don't know, but what I do believe - I really do hate people who whine, who go on and on about Bush, and criticize everything the guy has done ... there are days I wish you would be lucky enough to be dropped into the heart of the Congo where you could educate the nice people on human rights. Perhaps get dropped into Beijing and talk to the communist party about their raping Africa and South America. You would get what you really deserve and in the last moments, you just might realize what a fool you have been.

There are real crimes and real human rights violations - Africa as a continent may have been raped by the Euros in the 19th century, but that rape has never stopped and it is gearing up again, near frenzy state daily ... and the liberal response is to hold a meeting, boycott, demand change, request a meeting ... when i am not dreaming about liberals dropped into the Congo or into Beijing, I pray there is a God who is just.

(I am aware the article below deals only with part of my above stated complaint, but I have posted quite a few other articles, that when taken together, are the gensis of what I have posted above)







NOVEMBER 13, 2008, 11:17 P.M. ET
Congo Unrest Disrupts Critical Mine Reforms
By CASSANDRA VINOGRAD

As rebel fighting in eastern Congo threatens to escalate into a regional conflict, government officials in Kinshasa have put on hold important decisions affecting the mining industry, a delay that likely pushes back international investment plans and undercuts the country's efforts to rebuild its shattered economy.


International companies have scrambled to secure mining rights in Congo, which has vast reserves of cobalt, copper, tin and diamonds. But the country has been racked by years of civil war and cross-border fighting. Elections in 2006, the country's first in 40 years, appeared to ease some of the instability.


Refugees Struggle in Congo


The conflict has separated hundreds of families and displaced 250,000 people, leaving many in makeshift camps with poor sanitation.


Recently, Congo's mining ministry completed a review of the state's contracts with international companies. It was one of a series of moves by African countries to seek better terms amid booming commodity prices. The ministry renegotiated some 60 concession agreements.


But Congo's lawmakers have failed to sign off on the new deals. They have been preoccupied by the recent fighting and humanitarian crisis in North Kivu province, near Congo's eastern border with Rwanda. Renegade Gen. Laurent Nkunda has surrounded the provincial capital of Goma and has threatened United Nations peacekeepers and government troops. This week, Angola said it will send troops to the country, raising fears the fighting could draw in other countries.


"This war in the east is taking all of the government's attention," said Deputy Minister of Mines Victor Kasango in a telephone interview. "We are waiting for things to calm down."


The revised mining contracts were seen as crucial to President Joseph Kabila's plans to replenish drained state coffers and to repair infrastructure destroyed during years of fighting and neglect.



The old deals had been made by previous governments that critics said had signed them hastily, giving terms overly attractive to foreign companies.


A man reaches out to help two displaced children in eastern Congo. As the country continues to struggle with rebels, mining deals are being delayed, undercutting the country's efforts to boost its economy.


Mr. Kasango didn't provide details, but said the proposed new contracts would provide "good income opportunity in terms of taxation." Some companies have signed off on the new deals already, while others have said they will contest any renegotiation. The government, however, must formally approve them as a first step.


Congo needs the additional money. The country's central bank last week trimmed its annual growth forecast for next year to less than 10% from about 11%, citing waning demand for Congo's metals and unplanned violence-related spending. Craig Andrews, a World Bank analyst, said he would be surprised if growth topped 6% next year.


Congo's central-bank governor said last week that uncertainty surrounding the renegotiations already has slowed investment plans for foreign companies.


Analysts warn that mining companies working in the country -- including BHP Billiton Ltd., which is exploring for diamonds -- could back away from investment plans because of the new uncertainty surrounding contracts. A BHP representative declined to comment.


Analysts also say miners could use the delay and recent slump in commodity prices to force fresh contract talks, seeking better terms.

Congo "has perhaps waited too long to clinch the deals, and the pendulum may have swung back in favor of the companies," said Patricia Feeney, executive director of Rights and Accountability in Development, a group that promotes corporate accountability. "Deals may start to unravel."






Euros



Mining




Africa

Africa: Liberal Abandonment of Hope - Unless There is a Movie Involved

Why has the left never made a big deal of any other mineral?

Why did they make films about Blood Diamonds, but nothing was said about any other mineral?

Why is DiCaprio not exhorting the world's masses to cut down on the use of laptops to save Africa. Why is Hollywood not cutting back on so many items of wealth and spending to save Africans?

It puts it entirely in perspective. It shows us what these people really think about those less fortunate, and places it in glaring context. Unfortunately liberals come out looking like the hypocrites they are.

So you say - well, Conservatives are not doing anything more ... so they are hypocrites also. Well, not quite. According to liberal tautology, Conservatives don't care about the poor - you cannot not care and be a hypocrite. Consequently, I do not spend time dealing with what Republicans would or would not do - liberals have long held power - since 2006 at the most recent, while many elements of government were and remained liberal bastions long before that date. Conservatives have held power, but in limited form, and never as overwhelming as have liberals.

It is therefore legitimate to point out what liberals do not do, rather than what Republicans do not do.



Columns of men, bent double under 110-pound sacks of tin ore, emerged from the colonel’s mine shaft. It had been carved hundreds of feet into the mountain with Iron Age tools powered by human sweat, muscle and bone. Porters carry the ore nearly 30 miles on their backs, a two-day trek through a mud-slicked maze to the nearest road and a world hungry for the laptops and other electronics that tin helps create, each man a link in a long global chain.

On paper, the exploration rights to this mine belong to a consortium of British and South African investors who say they will turn this perilous and exploitative operation into a safe, modern beacon of prosperity for Congo. But in practice, the consortium’s workers cannot even set foot on the mountain. Like a mafia, Colonel Matumo and his men extort, tax and appropriate at will, draining this vast operation, worth as much as $80 million a year.


Why Hollywood or the liberal elite world wide do not care is easy - diamonds stare at you, diamonds are a symbol of wealth ... tin and laptops are everywhere. They are as prolific as sand, and for the liberal world elite to actually say something about tin ... is not very attractive. Films do not revolve around tin, unless they play bit parts - the Tin man from Wizard of Oz; Tin Men starring the most liberal of Hollywood's elite - Richard Dreyfuss; Tin Cup starring Kevin Costner; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - starring whoever it is and a cat I suppose on a roof made of tin. No one cares much about tin, but if you open your eyes and deconstruct our world, you may find tin plays an important role ... in everything, including the laptop Obama wants on his desk!

For liberals, the issue is - they do not think very deeply. Everything is emotional and superficial - what they sense and see, feel and touch, and diamonds are the best of possible devils to do combat against. Tin is so not liberal, like the thousands of workers who suffer daily digging the mineral up to allow our civilization to prosper.

Go forth, and pretend all is well - spend your time heckling Bush or screaming about equal rights in marriage. It gives you something to feel. Forget those who are in dire need - that requires you to act, and you, the liberal base, do not care about them.








Africa

Congo: Proof the UN Does Not Work and Obama's Policies are Disasters

Congo soldiers fleeing Goma along with refugees

Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2008.
By MICHELLE FAUL, The Associated Press

GOMA, Congo - Firing wildly, Congolese soldiers commandeered cars, taxis and motorbikes Wednesday in a retreat from advancing rebel fighters, joining tens of thousands of terrified refugees struggling to stay ahead of the violence.

As gunfire crackled in this eastern provincial capital, the Tutsi rebels said they had reached the outskirts of Goma and declared a unilateral cease-fire to prevent panic as the army retreats and residents flee.

Congo said Rwandan troops had crossed the border and attacked its soldiers - raising the specter that neighboring nations will again be drawn into Congo's war. Rwanda's Tutsi-led government immediately denied the charge, but Congo turned to Angola for help defending its territory.

As the chaos mounted, the U.S. announced its officials were leaving Goma and urged all American citizens to do the same. The State Department said Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer was heading to the capital, Kinshasa, and would arrive Thursday.

"There is a lot of violence," said spokesman Sean McCormack. "This is of deep concern to us."
Thousands of panicked refugees clogged the dirt roads out of Goma, struggling to reach safety.

Women carrying huge bundles on their heads and babies in their arms trudged alongside men pushing crude wooden carts crammed with clothing, food and cooking utensils. Bewildered children walked alongside. Young boys led goats and pigs on tethers as men on bicycles weaved in and out.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said about 45,000 people fled the nearby village of Kibati, where they had been sleeping in a makeshift camp in the open air, in a matter of hours on Wednesday.

"It was very chaotic," said agency spokesman Ron Redmond, speaking from Geneva. Most of the refugees had arrived only the day before after fleeing fighting farther north.

"They suddenly became very agitated and people began leaving the camp in a panic," Redmond said. They first headed toward Goma to the south, then changed direction and headed back out as it became clear the city was about to fall.

Goma's governor, Julien Mpaluku, acknowledged that panic was spreading, but stressed that U.N. peacekeepers were still in charge and rebels had not yet entered the city. U.N. spokesman Madnodje Mounoubai said peacekeepers were deployed at the airport and at other strategic points.

A rebel statement said their fighters were just outside Goma.

"We are not far from Goma," rebel leader Laurent Nkunda was quoted as saying on the BBC's Web site. "But because there is a state of destabilization in the town we decided ... unilaterally to proclaim a cease-fire."

Nkunda, who has ignored calls by the Security Council to respect a U.N.-brokered truce signed in January, called on government forces to follow suit.

The U.N. says its biggest peacekeeping mission - a 17,000-strong force - is now stretched to the limit with the surge in fighting and needs more troops quickly. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Uruguay and South Africa are the main contributors to the existing force.

But hopes for immediate backup from the European Union dimmed. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Wednesday the EU had considered sending troops to reinforce the peacekeepers in Congo but some countries refused.

(Senator Obama - read the above sentence VERY carefully. I apologize that you have a resistance to reality - let me explain - THE allies you think we have offended, the ones we should lower ourselves to, in order that we are equal with them - DO NOT CARE ENOUGH TO DO ANYTHING. THIS is what becomes of your silly idea of working with these states mulitlaterally. THEY DO NOT CARE. Weakening the US would prevent us from ever acting in these cases. Whether we should or not.)


Fears have grown of a wider war that could drag in Congo's neighbors. Congo suffered back-to-back wars from 1996 to 2002 that embroiled eight African nations and became a rush at the country's vast mineral wealth.

The unrest in eastern Congo has been fueled by festering hatreds left over from the 1994 Rwandan genocide, in which half a million Tutsis were slaughtered. More than a million Hutu extremists fled to Congo where they regrouped in a brutal militia that helps fuel the continuing conflict in Congo.

Rebel leader Nkunda, an ethnic Tutsi and former general, quit the army several years ago, claiming the government of President Joseph Kabila was not doing enough to protect minority Tutsis from the Hutu extremists.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged Congo's government to control its troops and help the U.N. peacekeepers protect civilians, blaming a "collapse in discipline" among soldiers for the escalating looting and attacks on U.N.

The U.N. Security Council later unanimously condemned the rebel offensive and demanded an end to the operation. The 15-nation council said any attack on civilians is "totally unacceptable" and called on Congo and Rwanda to restore stability in the region.

On Wednesday, retreating government soldiers entered Goma along with the fleeing refugees, grabbing cars, taxis and motorbikes to help in their escape.

About 15 soldiers briefly commandeered a car carrying an AP cameraman and photographer and demanded to be driven about 50 miles to the town of Saki.

"I'll kill you! I'll kill you!" yelled one soldier in front of an airfield near downtown Goma.

The soldiers grabbed boxes that looked like ammunition from the U.N. compound at the airport, piled them into the SUV and took off. Some of the soldiers piled onto the roof, others hung from open doors. The journalists finally managed to get away, jumping out of the moving vehicle at a military police checkpoint.

On another battlefront further north, government soldiers abandoned the town of Rutshuru and tens of thousands or refugees fled, according to U.N. officials and aid workers.

"It's incredibly dangerous," said Alice Gilbert, a project officer for the British medical agency Merlin. "Complete chaos broke out and everyone fled into the bush."







UN

Congo: Rwanda all over again?

Listening to the 'debate' a few nights ago, you would think Obama would call for intervention in cases of genocide or ethic cleansing (Iraq is a good example of this). He would never sit by while another Rwanda occurs. McCain said basically the same, but added that the US cannot be everywhere all the time, and fix all the problems. Obama would work with our allies - you know the ones, that Bush alienated.

These same allies, apparently alienated, or not, worked very hard to put together a peace treaty in the Congo. It has collapsed. In twelve years, 3 million people dead. THAT should constitute crimes against humanity, and quite possibly acts of genocide. It is going on as you read this, as the debate was occurring, and Obama never raised it - because it would qualify as a cause to intervene in, based on his criteria - militarily.

Rwanda may be over, but Rwanda is involved in the Congo, and the massacres involve Tutsi and Hutu.

Obama's 'never again', is "never again, when I am elected, but whatever happens until then is Bush's fault and I won't say anything and hope I don't have to deal with it because the Europeans sat down as did the UN and created a peace treaty by negotiating and compromising and talking, and it has fallen apart and hundreds are dying each day and no one is acting to prevent further deaths or punish those responsible, and I really don't like making decisions or taking decisive action so I would rather I spend time uniting the world to take action and maybe in the meantime the problem will get sorted."

Bush should be addressing this issue. The bloody world should be intervening, TODAY. Money can be recovered, stock markets will rise again - a million dead, will not.

(I assume Ms. Power has or will be speaking out about this and will get Obama interested sooner than later.)




Congo blames Rwanda for fresh fighting
Clashes between government forces and Tutsi rebels could force 30,000 people from their homes in eastern Congo.
By Scott Baldauf Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the October 11, 2008 edition

GOMA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO - Renewed fighting between Congolese rebels and government forces has worsened one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, sending thousands of villagers from their homes, while Congo's government accuses the Rwandan government of intervening on its soil.

Fighters from the rebel faction of Gen. Laurent Nkunda – an ethnic Tutsi thought to be backed by the Tutsi-led government in neighboring Rwanda – took the strategic town of Rumangabo and a military base from the Congolese Army during heated battle this week, but have since withdrawn. Casualty numbers were not known, but internal refugees told the Monitor that the fighting was fierce and that they were urged to leave their homes by government soldiers.

"Soldiers told us to leave because they were going to fight strongly against the Tutsis," says Appoline Nyiranza Bimana, a mother of three children, speaking on the morning of her arrival this week at Kibumba camp 25 miles north of the regional capital of Goma. "There was so much shooting, I couldn't stay at home anymore."

The fresh wave of fighting comes just 10 months after the signing of a peace deal between most of the major armed factions in the troubled eastern region of Congo. Nearly 3 million Congolese have died since 1996, when a rebel army – backed by a number of neighboring foreign countries, including Rwanda – forced the government of President Mobutu Sese Seko out of power. The January peace deal, brokered by the European Union and the United Nations, was seen by many as Congo's best chance for finally sending rebel armies home, but now political experts and peacekeepers say that it is clear the deal itself was never given a chance to work.

"One of the parties did this deliberately to derail the peace process, we're just not sure which one did it," says Lt. Col. Charles McKnight, a senior peacekeeping official within the UN peacekeeping force, MONUC. MONUC is the UN's largest peacekeeping operation in the world. "As of August, I was actually optimistic that this would all work."

[What an inspiring person - his judgment is brilliant. He believed it would work - may i ask based upon what precedent? And now he doesn't know who it was that derailed it. Amazing.]


The problems in Congo – one of the richest countries in the world, in terms of natural resources, but among the poorest in terms of human development – are rooted in a tangled mess of bloody ethnic rivalries, foreign interventions, and the violent sparring for control of lucrative mining resources. Congo's government, elected in the fall of 2006, has proved incapable of controlling its own vast territory and relies heavily on UN troops to keep the peace in the eastern provinces, where much of the mineral resources lie, and also, where much of the ethnic fighting has continued for more than a decade.

Nearly 100,000 Congolese have been displaced in the last three months alone, and given the population in the areas attacked in the past few days, as many as 30,000 additional people could be forced from their homes.

The peace deal, hailed for its inclusiveness of all Congolese armed groups, fell apart after fighting erupted Aug. 28, north of Goma. Nkunda complains that the government was never serious about peace, because it never attempted to shut down the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR), a group made up of Hutu rebels blamed for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. But government peace brokers say it was Nkunda who wasn't serious about peace, and that the violent clashes of the past few weeks show he is trying to provoke a regional conflict.

"It wasn't a realistic deal in the first place," says Gregory Mthembu-Salter, an analyst for the Economist Intelligence Unit in Johannesburg, and expert on Congo. Too many armed factions profit from their control of mineral resources, and worry about facing possible war crimes if they come out of the bush, he says. "They just haven't gotten beyond the zero-sum game."

The Congolese government says the current troubles are the instigation of Rwanda and the government of Paul Kagame. On Wednesday, the Congolese government announced plans to ask the UN Security Council to meet to discuss what they called the invasion of Rwandan soldiers on Congolese soil. Congolese Foreign Minister Antipas Mbusa Nyamwisi told Reuters news agency that he had "hard evidence," including captured Rwandan soldiers, to prove that Rwanda was intervening in Congo.

"The Rwandans are indeed there. They now want to take Goma [capital of North Kivu province]," Nyamwisi told Reuters. Rwandan officials deny the charges.

On the day of the attack on Rumangabo, it was clear that the conflict had escalated. Government tanks lined the road in the front line village of Rugare, pointing their turrets toward the hills where Nkunda's troops make their home. Even a day later, when Nkunda's troops retreated from Rumangabo and the military camp had returned to government control, local villagers continued to pack up their belongings and head for crowded displacement camps.

"We never thought that the camp could be taken, that's why we are forced to leave our village," says Sekibibi Sibomana, a farmer who left during the fighting on Wednesday and has returned to collect food for his family in the displacement camp at Kibumba. "We were sure that the army was very strong, and they could protect us, but they didn't."

Most of the refugees in this area blame the recent fighting on Nkunda, a former Congolese army general who took up arms against the government because of its inability or unwillingness to protect his ethnic Tutsi group against the Hutu-led FDLR.

Gen. Nkunda recently announced his plans to widen his rebellion to liberate the whole of Congo from the control of the government in Kinshasa.

Col. Delphin Kahimbi, commander of the Congolese army effort to retake Rumangabo, pulls out Rwandan Army backpacks and Rwandan Army ID cards as evidence that the recent takeover of his military camp at Rumangabo was a direct intervention by Rwanda.

"This was the Rwandan army with a small group of CNDP [Nkunda's rebel group]," says Col. Kahimbi. "We know that CNDP does not have the capacity. It is the Rwandan Army that has the capacity to come here."

One MONUC official, speaking on condition of anonymity, says he still holds out hope that the January peace agreement can be patched up. He also says that it is unlikely at this stage that the conflict will draw in neighboring countries, even if Congo pushes the UN Security Council to act.
"Kagame has too much to lose [than to enter Congo]," the MONUC official says. "He wants Rwanda to join the Commonwealth. The only way he gets involved here is if there is a massacre of Tutsis. Then he has the humanitarian justification to intervene."






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