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Congolese say South Africa’s Congolese immigrant sweep targeted anti-Kabila refugees
January 23, 2012
Two hundred Congolese immigrants, especially activists opposed to the Kabila regime, were, they said, “hounded out of their shops and homes by scores of South African police, then summarily arrested on ludicrous, trumped up charges of ‘public violence.’”
Cynthia McKinney: U.S. war machine pervades Africa
January 22, 2012
Does the Obama administration plan an African continent-wide Plan Colombia? Why such a militarization of U.S. relationships all over the world – and even here at home? Will chaos and wars – like what is happening in Libya today – be created all over Africa and the rest of Asia? Please circulate this message widely so that maybe we can get some more responses from the administration about its policy direction. Tell the White House that you will cast your vote for peace – to stop the drones and bring our troops home.
Lumumba is an idea
January 17, 2012
In the 1960s, many African countries acquired independence from colonial powers. The name that gave meaning to the struggle for independence, the right to claim a national identity and to be a human being in Congo was Patrice Emery Lumumba, the founding father of a political order in Congo. He was the first legally elected prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo after he helped win its independence from the Kingdom of Belgium in June 1960. Before his assassination Jan. 17, 1961, he wrote: “For the people, I have no past, no parents, no family. I am an idea.”
Rwanda will never be the same, after Victoire Ingabire’s return
January 16, 2012
As with the path that the U.S. Civil Rights Movement took after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus, nothing in Rwanda will ever be the same after Victoire Ingabire’s defiance of the Rwandan government’s unjust laws. She sparked a spirit of resistance.
Cynthia McKinney: 12,000 U.S. troops bound for Libya
January 15, 2012
It is with great disappointment that I receive the news from foreign media publications and Libyan sources that our president now has 12,000 U.S. troops stationed in Malta and they are about to make their descent into Libya. Black Libyans continue to be targeted for harassment and murder in Libya by U.S.-NATO allies on the ground.
Urgent message from South Africa: Free Ayanda Kota
January 12, 2012
Ayanda Kota, chairperson of the Grahamstown, South Africa, Unemployed Peoples’ Movement, was brutally beaten and arrested by the police today. Will he suffer the same fate as South Africa’s Steve Biko, the anti-apartheid leader and founder of the Black Consciousness Movement, who died in 1977 at age 31 in police custody, or Andries Tatane, a math teacher and community newspaper publisher whose police murder, caught on video during a protest on April 13, 2011, shocked the nation?
U.N. on Congo: Dodd-Frank conflict minerals law increases conflict
January 7, 2012
A U.N. report says that the USA’s conflict minerals legislation, Section 1502 of the Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, is increasing rather than decreasing criminality and conflict in the Congo and that Bosco Ntaganda is now in control of minerals smuggling from the Congo into Rwanda.
Congolese will decide the fate of Congo
January 6, 2012
Knowing of the vast reservoir of strength of the Congolese people, more important than its mineral wealth, one can expect a uniquely Congolese solution to finally securing a government that is accountable to its own citizens. With 70 million people, half under the age of 18 and half women, the future of the Congo is in the hands of the Congolese.
Stop the wicked West! Out of the killing fields in Ivory Coast and Libya comes a new world order
January 5, 2012
Today a new world order is being established in the wake of a heavy sacrifice of African lives – after the shock of thousands of deaths registered in Ivory Coast, with 1,200 inhabitants of Duékoué massacred, and dozens of thousands of casualties in Libya.
A young man set himself on fire in Boma, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and becomes a martyr of the Congolese Revolution
January 4, 2012
On Dec. 10, 2011, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a young man named Cedrick Nianza self-immolated by pouring gas on himself and setting the fuel alight. He continually shouted, “Congo na nga, Congo na nga” (“My Congo, my Congo”), while the flames consumed him.
The new land grab in Africa
January 1, 2012
The issue at stake is not only one of increased food insecurity, but an attack on food sovereignty or peoples’ right to produce their own food. Land grab is a violent act to take away peoples’ right to food, access to their ancestral land, their social and historical ties, and their overall right for human dignity.
Should Africa be an ally of the West or China? The case of Cameroon and Côte d’Ivoire
December 27, 2011
The past 12 months were very intense on the African continent. Some important elections stirred up a whole lot of interests. Shared zones of influence are being renegotiated between the old powers of the world, the Western powers, and the new power, China.
Congo: What’s Rwanda got to do with it?
December 27, 2011
Rwandan political prisoner Victoire Ingabire is spending her second Christmas in Rwanda’s maximum security prison. Her ongoing trial, on charges of terrorism and genocide ideology, has implications not only for Rwanda, but also for the entire Great Lakes Region of Africa – most of all, for the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Famine in the Horn of Africa
December 26, 2011
The international news has been inundated with urgent appeals on the famine in the Horn of Africa. Here in the U.S. not enough attention has been paid to it. While it is critical to support and contribute to famine relief, we believe it is equally important to understand the nature and political reality of the famine and what U.S. militarism and corporate land grab have to do with it.
Rwanda: Victoire Ingabire’s daughter calls for world pressure on Kagame
December 23, 2011
Victoire Ingabire left Rwanda almost two years ago in January 2010 to return to her native Rwanda in hopes of challenging Rwandan President Paul Kagame in the country’s 2010 presidential election. Her party was not allowed to register, she was not allowed to run, and she has spent the last year not as the president of Rwanda, but as a prisoner in Kigali’s 1930 maximum security prison.
Kenyan government signals greater U.S., Israeli involvement in Somalia
December 23, 2011
Recent events illustrate that the imperialist countries are committed to drastic changes in the political situation inside of Somalia. Over the last few months the Pentagon has stationed drones in Somalia, where attacks have been carried out on a daily basis resulting in the deaths of hundreds of civilians.
Kabila, Tshisekedi and Congo
December 17, 2011
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is in political crisis. The Independent National Electoral Commission announced that incumbent President Joseph Kabila is the winner, with 49 percent of the vote. But his leading challenger, Étienne Tshisekedi, rejected the results and declared that he now considers himself the nation’s president.
Burundi and Rwanda presidents’ widows appeal Obama immunity for indicted murderer
December 15, 2011
The widows of two African presidents slain in the 1994 missile attack on the presidential plane that triggered the Rwanda Genocide filed notice with the 10th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals challenging “head-of-state immunity” granted to the current president of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, by the Obama administration in Habyarimana v. Kagame.
Crisis in the Congo: Occupy the phones to the U.S. Senate before today’s hearing
December 14, 2011
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee meets today on the election crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. If your senator is a member, call him or her to demand that the U.S. government does not recognize the current election results published by the Congolese electoral commission in light of the Carter Center’s report about the irregularities during the electoral process.
Congo in crisis: Election results cannot be reconstructed
December 12, 2011
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is in political crisis. After an unfair, fraudulent and violent election, the National Electoral Commission, stacked with supporters of incumbent President Joseph Kabila, has announced Kabila is the winner. Leading challenger Étienne Tshisekedi has declared himself the winner.
