Tag: Friends of the Congo

“So this time around I lost. A few of our opposition people did scrape through, but the casino is owned by the ruling party and President Museveni and they would definitely be looking to make a profit. So that’s how I see this election – like a trip to the casino.” - Anne Mugisha

It wasn’t just Patrice Lumumba his assassins wanted to kill, it was the genuine self-determination, dreams and aspirations of African people, writes Horace Campbell, reflecting on the murder of the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Jan. 17, 1961. Two poems by Lumumba follow the story.

Congolese youth, the great Congo of today is ours. This gift is not just hereditary, but also because millions of Congolese have made the ultimate sacrifice for this country since 1482. We must do everything in our power to assure that our beautiful Congo remains in the hands of the sons and daughters of the Congo.

This month the U.S. and the U.N. Security Council must choose: Will they hold accountable major perpetrators of continued atrocities in the Congo or collaborate with them to put the blame on a few guilty but minor scapegoats and some innocent people who are guilty only of challenging the major offenders?

The Republic of Guinea, Conakry, on the western coast of Africa has a history that mirrors that of many other countries on the African continent. From colonialism, imperialism and dictatorships, Guinea has managed up until the present to avoid major ethnic clashes. Although there have always been ethnic tensions hovering over the Guinean society, Peuhl, Malinke, Susu, Kisi and all other groups have found ways to live as one nation. The current outbreak of ethnic violence in the wake of the first and second rounds of elections has roots in the beginning of the modern Guinean state.

A series of disasters has displaced and killed millions of people. Distinguished panelists who are not afraid to voice radical viewpoints give us an update on the current situation in Haiti, the DR Congo, Pakistan and New Orleans. Two of these advocates, Ezili Danto of Haiti and Kambale Musavuli of the Congo, are well known to Bay View readers. Ezili (longtime readers will remember her as Marguerite Laurent) emphasizes the economic disparity in Haiti: Half of 1 percent of Haitians own 98 percent of the wealth.

Human rights activists around the world have called for international justice and an end to impunity in the wake of the “U.N. Mapping Report on Human Rights Abuse in the Democratic Republic of Congo.” But many don't expect justice from an international criminal tribunal.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame was sworn in to serve another seven-year term on Sept. 6, 2010, 11 days after the explosive Aug. 26 leak of a U.N. report documenting genocide committed by his army in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

A nationwide coalition of U.S. activists is calling on President Barack Obama to intensify pressure on the government of newly re-elected Rwandan President Paul Kagame. They want Obama to immediately terminate all military assistance and freeze the $240 million scheduled for Kagame's undemocratic regime.

In January this year, Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza returned to her native Rwanda to run against incumbent Rwandan President Paul Kagame. Many observers believe that she would have been the leading candidate had she been able to officially enter the race.

President Obama said, in his 2009 speech in Accra, Ghana, that America should support strong institutions and not strong men. But Obama has expanded AFRICOM, the U.S. Africa Command, and now he remains silent as Rwanda’s strongman, President Paul Kagame, prepares a sham presidential election to retain his brutal grip on power.

The Democratic Republic of Congo does not need more militarization; it needs justice. Canada can help to advance justice, peace and stability in the Congo without sending a single soldier.

Congolese women are telling world leaders, "Listen to the Congolese for a change. We CAN bring an end to the geo-strategic resource war in the Congo.” Come hear Kambale Musavuli, the dynamic young Congolese leader who travels the U.S. breaking the silence about that war that has taken 6 million lives. He's speaking Sunday, April 18, 6:30 p.m., at the Black Dot Cafe, 1195 Pine St., West Oakland.

Considering local challenges and harmful international interference in the Democratic Republic of Congo for the past 400 years, it takes the greatest courage to overcome fear of oppression and to act for change. The courage demonstrated by grassroots Congolese women to resist and overcome fear of their local and international oppressors is extraordinary in the history of Africa.

Coltan is a mineral necessary for making electronic things work – like cellphones, ipods, PS3s and laptops. Over 6 million Congolese have been murdered to assure that the corporations and governments involved have a corner on the market for the minerals that the Congo produces. This is "Break the Silence" Congo Week. Check out the events and get involved!

One is hard pressed to find media accounts of what the Congolese people want or how they believe that the United States could best play a constructive role in ending the suffering in the Congo. Considering that the United States has played a significant historical role in the stifling of the democratic aspirations of the Congolese people and the backing of the 1996 and 1998 invasions of the Congo by its allies, Rwanda and Uganda, which unleashed what the United Nations say is the deadliest conflict in the world since World War II, it is important to hear directly from the Congolese people regarding U.S. engagement in the Congo.

"We applaud your focus on the horrors of the conflict in the Congo by addressing sexual and gender based violence; however, such violence against women is a direct result of the resource war. The United States can play a key role in bringing an end to the conflict," Friends of the Congo wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

“The basic cause of most of the trouble in the Congo right now is the intervention of outsiders — the fighting that is going on over the mineral wealth of the Congo and over the strategic position that the Congo represents on the African continent. And in order to justify it, they are doing it at the expense of the Congolese, by trying to make it appear that the people are savages. And I think, as one of the gentlemen mentioned earlier, if there are savages in the Congo, then there are worse savages in Mississippi, Alabama and New York City, and probably some in Washington, D.C., too.” – Malcolm X on radio station WMCA Nov. 28, 1964

Kambale Musavuli, national spokesperson and student coordinator for Friends of the Congo, in this interview by POCC Minister of Information JR, challenges the people of the U.S. and President Obama to stop the resource wars in the Congo that have killed 6 million people, half of them children, for minerals like the coltan that powers our cell phones and almost everything electronic.

Young Congolese journalist Chouchou Namegabe brought the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to tears when she testified May 13 that the rapes of a half million women and girls in the Congo are "meant to remove the people from their mineral-rich land." Watch the video and read the transcript.