Tag: crimes against humanity

The 17-year quest for peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo has taken a significant step in the right direction; however, many concerns remain. Last week the Congolese military routed the Rwanda- and Uganda-backed M23 and declared an end to its reign of terror against the Congolese people.

The Caribbean Community’s re-igniting of the reparations movement has raised the stakes to decisive governmental direct action. The 15 member regional bloc of nations established its Reparations Commission in July 2013, laying out the strategy for reparations for African enslavement and colonization and genocide of the indigenous populations of the Caribbean against the governments of Western Europe.

Gov. Jerry Brown, good ol’ boy of the 21st century prison industrial slave complex, your silence does not excuse you for your crimes against our humanity. You are an overseer of CDCr prisons and we have evidence that clearly shows prisoners have been murdered, beaten and tortured throughout these solitary confinement units by CDCr officials who are subordinate to you.

Former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, who last week completed a peace mission to Syria along with former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark and others, delivered the following address to the IBON Conference on Democracy, Self-Determination and Liberation of Peoples. The conference was held Sept. 23 at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium.

California District 13 Congresswoman Barbara Lee made it clear, on Friday, Aug. 31, that she sees no imminent threat to the U.S. from Syria and that the Constitution therefore requires President Obama to seek congressional authorization to launch a military strike. She has persuaded 64 members of Congress to sign a letter calling on the president to instead initiate a debate and seek congressional authorization before taking military action.

Friends of the Congo’s Executive Director Maurice Carney told KPFA that the U.N. Combat Intervention Brigade is really just the U.S., U.K., and other Western powers’ excuse for continuing to support African dictators – Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni and Congo’s Joseph Kabila. All three, he says, collaborate with foreign interests to drain Congo of its vast resource wealth.

Secretary of State John Kerry made headlines this week when he suggested, at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, that President Obama might soon be visiting Africa. Kerry gave no details about when or which countries. KPFA’s Ann Garrison spoke to former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney about the president’s relationship to the continent of his father’s birth.

Late last week, the Security Council approved the creation of what it called its first-ever “offensive” combat force, with a mandate to carry out targeted operations to “neutralize and disarm” the notorious March 23 or M23 militia, as well as other Congolese rebels and foreign armed groups in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Until now, U.N. peacekeeping forces’ only explicit mandate has been the protection of civilians.

This letter, signed by Diaspora Congolese women in the U.S., U.K., Belgium, France and South Africa, was delivered to Ambassador Carson on March 20. We are writing to you with regard to the current U.S. policy position on “Lasting Solution to Instability” in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which you presented on Feb. 11, 2013, at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.

Congolese people are seeking peace and justice. Trying Bosco Ntaganda at the ICC may lead to some measure of justice for the crimes perpetrated at his behest; however, it appears that his backers in Rwanda may very well be let off the hook yet again and allowed to continue their military aggression against the DRC.

In what is clearly a continuation of the Feb. 29, 2004, U.S. instigated coup d’etat against Haiti, former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide has been called before Martelly’s handpicked government prosecutor Lucmane Delile in what is widely believed to be an attempt by Martelly, the U.S. and France to wage a campaign of political persecution against Aristide, Fanmi Lavalas, and the democratic process and progress in Haiti.

For the past 40 years, prisoners have been removed off general population due to being validated as alleged prison gang members or associates. This is the sole reason for our placement: not behavior. CDCr started this indefinite lockup in the mid- to late 70s and soon realized that there was an economic incentive for labeling prisoners as a threat to the safety and security of the institution.

Over the last 16 years, more than 6 million lives have been lost in Congo – and the major perpetrators of those atrocities have been U.S. allies Rwanda and Uganda. The majority of victims have been children under the age of 5. Subsequent U.S. administrations have provided aid to the Rwandan and Ugandan regimes. The U.S. remains one of the top two donors of aid to Rwanda today.

Kagame jails and kills people in Rwanda and is sending his agents to pursue people in Europe and here in the U.S. for the crime of simply saying that not only Tutsis but also Hutus died in 1994. One young man who is now under attack as a “bad” survivor is Claude Gatebuke.

Everything that we have witnessed in Libya, all of the bloodshed, is based on the word of one individual, and he admits on camera that he had not one whit of proof that the letter’s contents were true. And now look at Libya. What of the, by some estimates, 20,000 people killed? What of the Libyans whose skin is dark like mine and who have been targeted for murder? What about those left homeless by U.S.-NATO bombing? In the Jamahirya, every Libyan was entitled to a home.

In controversy is the minister of health’s announcement of what the government of Rwanda calls voluntary vasectomies (sterilizing) of 700,000 males.

Suggestions that the government of Muammar Qaddafi is on its last legs and that life in Tripoli has drawn to a standstill as a result of the NATO bombing campaign are not based on reality. Journalists have a duty to report the truth regardless of the whims of their governments.

The Platform to Stop Impunity in Rwanda requests the South African government accept the extradition petition issued by the Spanish government and hand over the indicted Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa to the Spanish authorities. Add your organization as a signatory.

On Dec. 15, a French judge filed preliminary charges against six people close to Rwandan President Paul Kagame for the 1994 assassination of the Rwandan and Burundian presidents that triggered the Rwanda Genocide. When will Obama take heed of these new French charges? How much longer will the U.S. back the regime sued on two continents and in three countries?

The inescapable implication of the U.N. report on the Congo is that Rwandan President Kagame could be legally proven to be a genocidaire, or perpetrator of genocide. President Obama must use the U.N. report to distance his administration from Mr. Kagame.