Tag: Uganda

One hundred years ago, a global outrage surrounding the death of an estimated 10 million Congolese resulted in the end of King Leopold II of Belgium’s rule in the Congo. Ordinary people around the world from all walks of life stood at the side of the Congolese and demanded the end of the first recorded Congolese holocaust. A century later, the world finds itself facing the same issue, where the Congolese people are subjected to unimaginable suffering.

The CIA report predicts “an inexorable movement away from a two-state to a one-state solution as the most viable model based on democratic principles of full equality that sheds the looming specter of colonial apartheid while allowing for the return of the 1947-1948 and 1967 refugees. The latter being the precondition for sustainable peace in the region.”

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.

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.

Now while all these militias, rebel groups and armies have been causing horrific wars at great cost to human lives in central Africa, so-called developed countries have been enjoying a lifestyle that is sustained in large part by the resources that come from Africa. The DRC supplies the world's diamonds, coltan, tantalite, oil and so forth.

When opportunity presented itself in the form of widespread warfare in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zimbabwean military leaders were quick to provide troops in exchange for permission to establish Zimbabwean corporations to exploit Congolese raw materials.

I recently received a phone call from an investigator for the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, and I shared my uncertainty about the ethics of collaborating with an "International Criminal Court" that was only indicting Black Africans.

Cobalt is essential to our military industries’ ability to manufacture the modern weapons of war. So, the Congo War, a.k.a. the African holocaust, is a war for the sake of war itself.

El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X) was assassinated 44 years ago, on Feb. 21, 1965, because of his attempt to internationalize the African American struggle for self-determination.

The African Union summit has elected Libyan Revolution Leader Muammar Al-Qaddafi the new president of the AU. The position will give Al-Qaddafi the power to influence policies across Africa for the next year.

The December 2008 United Nations report is the latest in a series of U.N. reports dating from 2001 that clearly documents the systematic looting and appropriation of Congolese resources by Rwanda and Uganda, two of Washington and London's staunchest allies in Africa.

The Congolese people continue to suffer staggering casualties in the ongoing African holocaust, which has cost between 5 and 6 million Congolese lives since 1996, and which continues to cost 45,000 lives a month.

2008 marked the 100-year anniversary of the removal of the Congo from King Leopold II of Belgium as his own personal property. Global outrage at the King's brutal rule resulted in his losing the Congo treasure trove on Nov. 15, 1908.

Blacked out by a media smokescreen are the corporate executives, government officials and expatriate personnel of Western enterprises whose success amidst chaos implicates them in the deracination and death of millions of Black people.

Rwanda and Uganda invaded the Congo twice, first in 1996 and again in 1998. These invasions unleashed the mass deaths and suffering that we...

The New York Times piece, "Rwanda Stirs Deadly Brew of Trouble in the Congo," laid the foundation for a more honest dialogue about the resource war in the Congo, which has resulted in dying and suffering of holocaust proportions.

What makes this conflict particularly sickening is the role of U.S. and European corporations, together with Rwanda and Uganda, in the plunder of DRC's resources. This is a war about self-interest and greed.

Following "Break the Silence" Congo Week, Kambale Musavuli urges the global community, and African-Americans in particular, to revitalize international attention on the Congo as a means of shedding light on the ongoing conflict and harnessing the potential for strong advocacy relationships.