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15 April 2010 By Keith Harmon
The eastern Congo remains awash in bloodshed due to
western mining companies and their proxy armies, the
military regimes of Paul Kagame (Rwanda), Yoweri
Museveni (Uganda), and Joseph Kabila (DRC), all hidden
behind reams of western newsprint blaming Congolese
victims for their own suffering. Across the continent
a new rebellion in western Congo has reportedly
engaged Belgian paratroopers and UN “peacekeepers” in
alliance with the DRC government. With massive
casualties and more than 200,000 civilians forced to
flee western Congo the United Nations and western
media have covered up the new rebellion. Meanwhile,
AFRICOM under the Obama administration has major base
constructions and secret deployments across Central
Africa, with NATO, Dyncorp and Special Operations
Command shipping Ugandan grunts to the U.S. wars in
Somalia, Afghanistan, Darfur and Iraq.
With the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
engulfed in bloodshed and terrorism due to the
secretive occupation and expansion by the Rwandan
regime of Paul Kagame, Congo’s President Joseph Kabila
has received support from Belgium and the U.S. Africa
Command (AFRICOM) to crush a growing rebellion sparked
by resistance forces in far Western Congo. But the
United Nations Observers Mission in Congo (MONUC) has
downplayed the new rebellion and hidden massive
military and civilian casualties.
Are Belgian Paratroopers Fighting in
Western Congo?
A rising alliance calling themselves “The Resistance
Patriots of Dongo” (Patriotes-Résistants de Dongo)
spread in western Congo over the past six months after
Congolese people learned that Congolese resistance
forces tired of the corrupt regime of Joseph Kabila
were fighting against Rwandan troops in the little
frontier town of Dongo.
Sources in Congo’s capital Kinshasa reported that an
emergency “crisis” meeting was convened in Brussels on
Nov. 28, 2009, after a distress call was sent by
Congo-Kinshasa President Hypolitté Kanambe, known to
the Western world by his alias, Joseph Kabila Kabange,
and the Belgian military attaché in Kinshasa was
instructed to deploy a detachment of elite Belgian
Armed Forces (BAF) paratroopers to Congo.1
Sources in DRC claimed that Belgian troops joined the
Kabila COALITION forces, backed by AFRICOM and allied
with Rwanda, and engaged the RESISTANCE forces in
Equateur province in January.
Interests competing with President Joseph Kabila’s
Congo (including U.S. and Israeli minerals cartels,
weapons dealers and money-laundering operations)
support the new western Congo RESISTANCE forces. These
interests operate through regional power brokers,
e.g., in Gabon, Angola, Congo-Brazzaville, Rwanda,
Uganda, and South Africa.
In mid-November President Joseph Kabila secretly
airlifted a battalion of Rwandan Defense Forces (RDF)
across Congo to crush the rebellion. Comprised of
former Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) rebels who
overthrew the government of Juvenal Habyarimana in
Rwanda (1990-1994), the RDF joined Kabila’s COALITION,
which includes MONUC troops from the international
“peacekeeping” mission and Tutsi Rwandan soldiers
infiltrated by Rwanda, with the Kabila government’s
support, into Congo’s national army, the FARDC. RDF
forces, moved to Congo from Rwanda exclusively for the
operation, were uniformed as Armed Forces of the DRC (FARDC).2
Thus western Congo is awash in bloodshed involving
COALITION forces backed by AFRICOM, Belgium and Israel
Amongst the biggest Kabila supporters are the
U.S.-Israeli Dan Gertler, Moshe Schnitzer and Benny
Steinmetz families, also holders to Congo’s most
lucrative (copper/cobalt) mines.
MONUC Hides Equateur Conflict
The Tutsi forces in the FARDC include infiltrated
Rwandan Defense Forces (RDF, formerly Rwandan
Patriotic Front/Army) and “ex-”CNDP forces from the
National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP),
the extremist terrorist militia that sprouted out of
the Kivu Provinces but is heavily backed by Rwanda and
infiltrated with thousands of extremist Tutsis.
The secret infiltration and official integration of
Rwandan forces into Congo was a strategic maneuver
championed by Rwandan general James Kabarebe and Paul
Kagame, both wanted for war crimes by the Spanish and
French courts. Rwanda’s Kagame is the primary cause of
the massive destabilization of Eastern Congo.
The leaders of the rebellion in western Equateur
Province have reportedly forged an alliance with
General Dunia, a Mai Mai leader operating against the
joint operations of the Kabila COALITION in South Kivu,
eastern Congo, and site of Canadian BANRO Gold
Corporation’s massive illegal gold concessions.
Mai-Mai forces in Congo are highly nationalist
Congolese. In late 2009, Mai-Mai leaders issued a
communiqué and declaration of war against Joseph
Kabila and his foreign and corporate allies.
South Kivu human rights groups have documented BANRO’s
links to local terrorism, yet not one mainstream
western media source has reported or even named the
pivotal western mining interests—including BANRO, Moto
Gold (Walter Kansteiner), Mwana Africa, Heritage Oil &
Gas—behind the war and plunder in blood-drenched
eastern Congo.
Many Congolese people have long since known that the
president of their country has supported a secret
extremist “Tutsi” alliance that seeks to dominate
Central Africa. His real name is Hypolitté Kanambe,
formerly a junior Rwanda Patriotic Front/Army (RPF/A)
officer plucked from the Alliance of Democratic Forces
for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (AFDL) forces.
It is widely supported that Joseph Kabila reported
directly to RPF/A commanders James Kabarebe and Paul
Kagame in the Pentagon-backed AFDL “rebellion” that
overthrew President Joseph Mobutu in Zaire (Congo);
there are also claims that Kabila was a soldier in the
RPF/A during the multiple genocides orchestrated by
Kagame’s extremist Tutsi RPF/A in Rwanda (1990-1994).
The term “extremist Tutsi” applies only to the elite
secretive organization, formerly the Rwandan Patriotic
Front/Army (RPF/A), which exists in parallel with the
parliamentary government of Rwanda.3,4,5,6 RDF are not
exclusively Tutsi, but are controlled by the extremist
Tutsi network maintained by Paul Kagame, General James
Kabarebe and others of the 40 top war criminals
indicted by the Spanish court on Feb. 6, 2008.
After seizing power in July of 1994, the extremist
Tutsi network continued to perpetrate atrocities,
including massacres, assassinations, tortures and
disappearances, and the network moved into Congo-Zaire
in 1996. The modus operandi of the Kagame terrorist
network is to perpetrate crimes and blame them on
victim populations (Hutus, FDLR, Mai Mai, Congolese
civilians, even Tutsi dissidents). The western media
plays along.
A major source of ongoing conflict in the DRC’s Kivu
provinces, Rwandan Gen. Bosco Ntaganda, was rewarded
in January 2009 for playing along with the Kabila
COALITION charade of “arresting” Rwandan war criminal
Gen. Laurent Nkunda, another perpetrator of war crimes
who received Washington’s blessings for several years.
One of few points to their credit, the U.N. Panel of
Experts, in their report of November 2009, exposed the
appointment of Gen. Bosco Ntaganda as CNDP-FARDC
commander, which Kagame and Kabila officially denied.
The International Criminal Court indicted General
Bosco Ntaganda for war crimes committed in DRC in May
2008. The ICC is a political instrument used to
selectively target certain individuals and militias,
while ignoring more substantial state sanctioned
actors like Paul Kagame, James Kabarebe, Yoweri
Museveni, Maurice Templesman, or former U.S. National
Security Council member Walter Kansteiner, all deeply
behind the war and plunder in DRC.
Gen. Ntaganda commanded CNDP-FARDC units responsible
for massive war crimes under the joint “Kimia”
operations launched with MONUC backing in eastern
Congo in January 2009. Ntaganda’s role is to work from
the inside to destabilize eastern Congo in exchange
for Kabila and Kagame protecting him from the ICC.
The current death toll in the eastern provinces of
Congo alone stands at some 1,000 people per day, with
at least ten million dead in Congo since the U.S.
invasion of 1996, with millions of refugees in the
Great Lakes member states. Rwandan allied forces in
DRC are perpetrating genocide at present in North Kivu,
and the western media and “humanitarian” agencies have
remained silent. More than 15,000 IDPs were registered
between December 2009 and January 2010, with thousands
more IDPs reported hiding in North Kivu forests.
Violence in eastern Congo is universally and falsely
blamed on the Forces for the Democratic Liberation of
Rwanda (FDLR), but in fact violence is primarily due
to Rwandan allied forces. Additionally, more than
168,000 people have been uprooted due to recent
fighting in Western Congo.7
Congo-Brazzaville has harbored the ex-Forces Armées
Zaïroises (ex-FAZ) since the overthrow of President
Mobutu in 1997, and it harbors Rwandans that fled the
AFDL genocide against Hutu refugees in Congo-Zaire
(1996-1997).8 There may be some 300 ex-MLC (Movement
for the Liberation of Congo) rebels and more than
10,000 ex-FAZ involved in the western rebellion.
Equateur Province is the site of major untapped
petroleum reserves. Belgian, French, Portuguese,
German and U.S. families and corporations control vast
tracts under attack by industrial logging. There are
also Western-owned plantations with modern day slavery
involving tens of thousands of Congolese people
subject to terrorism by state paramilitary services.9
Resistance Patriots of Dongo
In March 2009 the Western press reported a “tribal
dispute” and “ethnic clash over fishing rights” in the
little Western Congo outback town of Dongo. The
dispute reportedly began between two different ethnic
groups. However, the “Resistance Patriots of Dongo”
claim that government agents manipulated the parties
of the dispute and escalated armed hostilities.
In October 2009 President Kabila and top military
adviser John Numbi dispatched FARDC troops under the
command of Gen. Benjamin Alongaboni to Dongo to
negotiate peace with resistance forces. Gen.
Alongaboni, a Congolese son hailing from Equateur
Province and the first FARDC officer on the scene,
secured a negotiated peace with Dongo area combatants.
Soon after, however, President Kabila sent RDF
forces—in FARDC uniforms—who enraged Congolese in the
region and provoked hostilities by killing some local
people and undermining peace negotiations. The
Resistance Patriots of Dongo retaliated and Congolese
FARDC troops under the command of Gen. Alongaboni
defected.
Meanwhile, the “Dongo Crisis” blossomed into a
full-blown Congolese rebellion against international
occupation forces and the powerful Kabila-Kagame
clique. Hundreds of Congolese Armed Forces (FARDC)—of
ethnic Congolese origin—reportedly deserted and joined
rebellion ranks with Congolese civilians and various
military elements of past rebellions.
Bound for the Dongo rebellion in mid-November, Rwandan
Defense Forces (RDF) crossed Lake Kivu from Gisenyi to
Goma, DRC, and were then flown from Goma to Kamina Air
Base in Katanga, a military transport hub used for the
Belgo-American-U.N. mercenary occupations during the
Katanga secession (1960-63) and “Congo Crises”
(1964–67). The RDF battalion was next flown to
Bandundu Province.
The RDF troops were reportedly next moved onto the
42-acre campus of the U.S. Embassy-affiliated American
School in Kinshasa (TASOK), near the notorious Camp
Tshatshi military base, and then flown to Gemena
airport in Equateur. The Colonel Tshatshi Military
Camp in Kinshasa is the FARDC military command
headquarters. The TASOK campus was used for RDF troops
because Rwandans would not be welcome amongst
Congolese-FARDC at Camp Tshatshi.
There were at least three round trips in some legs of
the RDF flight plan reportedly using both MONUC and
Hewa Bora Airlines, an airline 70 percent owned by
Belgian arms trafficker Philippe de Moerloose. In the
“leaked” November 2009 U.N. Panel of Experts Report on
Illegal Exploitation in the Congo, Philippe De
Moerloose and Hewa Bora Airlines were named for
weapons shipments from Sudan to Congo in violation of
the International Arms Embargo on the DRC.10 De
Moerloose supplies Kabila with presidential jets and
other war toys.
Attempting to discredit the High Court in Spain for
its issuing of international war crimes indictments
against 40 top Rwandan military officials, the U.N.
Panel of Experts Report also falsely accused Spanish
non-government organizations affiliated with the
judicial war crimes investigations of backing
“terrorist” groups in eastern Congo.
The Resistance Patriots of Dongo have inflicted high
casualties on the Kabila Coalition forces dispatched
to Equateur. MONUC issued one tiny press report on
Nov. 26, after resistance forces shot up a MONUC
helicopter that flew to Dongo to resupply the
Coalition ground troops. Some 2000 of the coalition
troops were reported killed in February and March.
A short Western media propaganda blurb titled “Armed
group claims firing at UN chopper in DRC,” Agence
France-Presse attempted to discredit the rebellion and
cover for MONUC’s involvement in open military
aggression against Congolese people.
The AFP described the conflict as purely tribal and
framed it as ruthless savage Africans killing with
machetes. The MONUC chopper apparently was attacked on
Nov. 26.11
Dongo War Not Connected to Eastern
Congo?
“The fighting is not related to the simmering conflict
in the mineral-rich eastern borderlands,” Reuters
wrote, “where the army – backed by thousands of
peacekeepers – are attempting to stamp out local,
Rwandan, and Ugandan rebels.”12
On Dec. 3, 2009, Belgian newspapers La Libre Belgique
and RTLM reported that Belgium’s Foreign Minister
Steven Vanackere and Defense Minister Pieter De Crem
had responded to the communiqué of the Resistance
Patriots of Dongo, circulated on the Internet on Dec.
1, which warned Belgium and Kinshasa that the
resistance knew of the secret plan to dispatch
paratroopers to Kisangani. The two Belgian ministries
issued a joint communiqué denying denying the secret
plan.13
According to Kinshasa sources, the MONUC-uniformed
Belgians would be flown from Kisangani, Orientale
Province, to Equateur Province’s northwestern frontier
city of Gbadolite — the stronghold of former President
Mobutu and rebel warlord Jean Pierre Bemba — and then
to Gemena airport near Dongo.14
Soon after the Resistance Patriots of Dongo forces
occupied the frontier city of Libenge, President
Kabila dispatched 600 elite FARDC commandos trained by
60 Belgian Armed Forces instructors at Kamina Air
base.
Sources in Kinshasa on Dec. 5 reported: “massive
violent fighting in Libenge and Gemena areas,”
involving 1,000 Congolese National Police (PNC) and
100 Ghanaian MONUC troops and two MONUC helicopter
gunships.15
The MONUC “peacekeeping” enterprise in Congo is a $1
billion a year operation involving contracts with
Lockheed Martin subsidiary Pacific Architects and
Engineers (PAE).
On December 14, 2009, the Spanish Press Agency SAPA
and Agence France-Presse reported that DRC government
troops fighting against ‘tribal forces’ had taken back
the town of Dongo, with the tribal forces being “led
by the animist priest Udjani.”16 The article
maintained the ongoing silence about high casualties.
The international news media was completely silent
after government forces that had reentered Dongo by
December 14 suffered a crushing defeat when resistance
forces sprang a trap: scores of Kabila Coalition
troops (allegedly including ‘white’ mercenaries) were
massacred.
On December 16, 2009, the MONUC spokesman in Kinshasa
DRC announced that MONUC troops were deployed in Dongo
in Equateur province “to sustain the joint PNC/FARDC
operations aimed at re-establishing order [sic] and
state authority…”17
MONUC transferred some 500 regular MONUC Ghanaian,
Tunisian and Egyptian “peacekeepers” to Equateur
province from the eastern Congo’s conflict areas in
Orientale and the Kivus, along with Armored Personnel
Carriers, weapons, and transport and combat
helicopters. MONUC also deployed Guatemalan Special
Forces to the Equateur region.
On December 22, New York’s Bloomberg News reported
with a news brief deepening the racist mythology
portraying this as African savagery and superstition.
“The Enyele leader is a mystic named Udjani,” wrote
Michael J. Kavanagh, reporting for Bloomberg from
Kinshasa (DRC) and Impfondo (Republic of Congo),
referring to the Enyele tribe, “who claims to have a
magical sword that can poison people and pass its
powers to the curved machetes wielded by many of his
followers, witnesses said.”18
Sources working for MONUC in Kisangani confirm that
there are Belgian troops in Kisangani, with “one or
two” Hercules C-130 Belgian military aircraft.
Resistance forces and Kabila’s Coalition forces
engaged in major battles since January with many top
military officers of the Kabila Coalition killed.
Sources claim that Kabila Coalition forces have used
incendiary bombs causing huge civilian casualties. A
key intelligence source in Kinshasa insists that
Belgian paratroopers were on the ground in Equateur
and, unprepared for the organized resistance they
encountered, were forced to retreat after some
(unknown) number were wounded and killed. MONUC troops
have also been engaged in the fighting, in continued
violation of the U.N. “peacekeeping” mandate.
Election Slogans and Empty Promises
(Sound Familiar?)
In the beginning, many Congolese supported President
Kanambe, alias Kabila, ignoring his origins, hoping
that he would share power, that he would develop the
Congo, build roads and schools and, especially, that
he would forestall and evict Ugandan and Rwandan
agents, provocateurs, mining cartels and war criminals
from the 1996-2001 war years. They were the usual
empty promises made by the usual empty politicians.
The plan has all along been to colonize Congo through
Rwanda. This involves eliminating as many Congolese
people as possible to control their land, balkanizing
the Congo and creating a “Republic of the Volcanoes” (Republique
des Volcans) as Clinton-Bush official Herman Cohen has
repeatedly called for since the U.S.-backed invasion
of 1996.
For years now several high visibility Western
intelligence organizations, in particular the groups
ENOUGH, STAND, Genocide Intervention Network, and the
RAISE HOPE FOR CONGO—created and funded by the
International Crisis Group and Center for American
Progress—have lobbied college students and Western
governments to action. Legislation backed by these
intelligence fronts includes the “LRA Disarmament Act”
(Lord’s Resistance Army), the so-called ‘Blood
Minerals’ legislation, and the “Violence Against Women
Act” (Resolution 1888). The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA)
is blamed for all terrorism in the northern Uganda
region, which is awash in oil, thus shielding the
organized war crimes of Ugandan President Museveni and
his western allies, just as the Forces for the
Democratic Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) are blamed to
shield the Kagame terror networks.
William Jefferson Clinton’s former national security
insider John Prendergast is the leading cheerleader
for these groups, with Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton’s help, and with John Podesta, Tom Daschle and
Madeleine Albright, behind the scenes. John
Prendergast was the expert of choice for CBS 60
Minutes’ “Blood Minerals” broadcast, nationally
televised in the United States on Nov. 29, 2009, which
was an advertisement for ENOUGH, the International
Rescue Committee and so-called “humanitarian”
organizations. These lobby and flak entities are
working to displace and neutralize all true
international grassroots efforts to help the Congolese
people take control of their own resources and future,
and they cover for hidden Western interests; they also
advance military solutions over diplomatic or other
peaceful solutions.
The Western media perpetually broadcasts the suffering
in Congo, but the propaganda is simplistic
disinformation, and the Western “news”-consuming
public eats it up and dismisses the Congo, abandoning
the people whose lives are determined in part by the
raw materials stolen from them in a state of war and
organized crime. These include diamonds, gold,
columbium-tantalite, cobalt, copper, petroleum,
germanium, tin, tungsten, palm oil, coffee and
chocolate (sold in Whole Foods groceries stores). But
the value of Congo’s greatest natural “resource”
exceeds the value of all the above resources combined:
the biggest western moneymaker in Congo is
humanitarian aid, charity and international
relief—Save the Children, CARE, UNICEF, UNHCR—a.k.a.,
and the misery industry.
In mid-March actorvist Ben Affleck launched yet the
latest western “humanitarian” enterprise in eastern
Congo. Affleck’s ‘humanitarianism’ operates behind the
western disinformation campaign that charges Congolese
men with using ‘rape as a weapon of war’—an agenda
also pushed by Eve Ensler (of Vagina Monologues
fame)—but fails to address the true perpetrators of
crimes, including the many mining, private military,
intelligence and other military interests involved in
bloodshed and plunder. The ‘rape as a weapon of war’
framework facilitates western ignorance of the true
perpetrators of war, including western agents, weapons
brokers, mercenary companies, proxy forces, NATO and
AFRICOM, and U.S. brokered military hardware (AK-47s,
rockets, armored personnel carriers, tanks, grenades,
surface-to-air missiles). Hillary Clinton’s
denunciation of “rape as a weapon of war” in July 2009
covered up her negotiations with Joseph Kabila
regarding the Clinton aligned diamond interests in DRC.
Affleck’s new Congo initiative is funded by Howard
Buffet, whose powerful holding company, Berkshire
Hathaway, has diverse business interests involved in
the Great Lakes. Berkshire Hathaway has an 18.2% stake
in the Washington Post and the Buffet’s agribusinesses
in Africa are entrenching Monsanto’s genetically
modified (GMO) crops. The Buffets are tight with Bill
and Melinda Gates, all close business partners with
the Clinton’s in Rwanda and Uganda. In September 2008,
Bill Gates, Howard Buffet, Paul Kagame and Yoweri
Museveni met at the United Nations headquarters to
launch their GMO partnership “Purchase for Progress”
with the UN’s World Food Program. Affleck also has his
own private business interests facilitated by the
Kagame regime in Kigali, and like Gates and Buffet he
comes and goes from Kigali on a private jet.
Washington Post reportage on Congo, Rwanda, Uganda and
Sudan is a complete whitewash of western interests.
Rwanda has become the Pentagon’s main base and center
of military operations in Africa, and this partnership
involves Israel.
On January 28, 2009, sources in Congo reported that
Joseph Kabila narrowly survived another assassination
attempt, the third this year, with his bodyguard
taking the bullet. Meanwhile, violent fighting
continued in Equateur province into March, with Kabila
coalition troops allegedly arresting and torturing
civilians and accusing them of being rebels, including
boys as young as 10, and widely committing summary
executions. This is a massive violation of
international law; AFRICOM and MONUC officials know it
is happening; United Nations officials in New York
know it is happening;19 and the western press is
silent.
In Mid-March, at an exclusive United States Institute
for Peace meeting in Washington, DC, AFRICOM spokesman
Mark Swayne dismissed any AFRICOM involvement in these
covert operations by responding that such reports are
“irrelevant.” The USIP has funded pro-Kagame
disinformation campaigns since the early 1990’s,
shielding U.S. involvement in Central African war
crimes and genocide. AFRICOM information campaigns
exclusively project an image of U.S. troops being only
involved in humanitarian and peacekeeping operations.
Curiously, at the same USIP meeting, Mark Swayne
reportedly “apologized” for AFRICOM’s use of Ugandans
in building the new AFRICOM base under construction in
Kisangani, Congo. Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni—through
his wife and brother Salim Saleh’s organized crime
networks and the Ugandan military—are hated for more
than a decade of plunder and terror in Congo. The
Pentagon’s own web site identifies the elite U.S.
Special Operations Command (SOCOM) as ‘training’
Congolese troops in Kisangani, DRC, and Swayne did not
reveal that the Ugandans are mercenaries likely
affiliated to the western mercenary-linked oil
companies (Heritage Oil & Gas, Hardman Resources, H
Oil) operating in the Lake Albert basin on the DRC-Uganda
border.
AFRICOM, NATO and private military companies Dyncorp
and PAE (Pacific Architect & Engineers, a subsidiary
of Lockheed Martin) have also been training and flying
Ugandan and Rwandan troops to the
U.S.-European-Israeli wars in Somalia and Sudan (Darfur).
There are some 300 Ugandans backing the US in
Afghanistan and more than 10,000 Ugandans in Iraq,
with more than 3000 Rwandans in Darfur.
In December 2009, a group of Congolese chiefs sent an
open letter to U.S. President Barrack Obama
proclaiming a “categorical refusal of your AFRICOM
Project in the Congo.”
AFRICOM, NATO and private military companies Dyncorp
and PAE (Pacific Architect & Engineers, a subsidiary
of Lockheed Martin) have been ‘training’ and flying
Ugandan and Rwandan troops to the US-European-Israeli
wars in Somalia and Sudan (Darfur). There are some 300
Ugandans backing the US in Afghanistan and more than
10,000 Ugandans in Iraq, with more than 3000 Rwandans
reported to be in Darfur. An unknown number of Rwandan
soldiers are also in Iraq and Afghanistan, and there
are allegations that “peacekeeping” sorties sent to
Darfur, Sudan, may actually serve as cover for
military personnel and hardware actually bound from
Rwanda to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
However, Sudan is exploding as you read this, and the
huge Rwandan deployments might be behind new violence.
These are Rwandan and Ugandan troops responsible for
the most egregious war crimes in all the Great Lakes
countries.
On April 4, 2010, rebellion insurgents crossed the
Congo river and attacked the provincial capital of
Mbandaka. Two MONUC troops were killed, and many more
wounded after insurgents attacked the governor’s
residence and took the Mbandaka airport. By April 9
the government FARDC forces and MONUC had regained the
airport leaving three MONUC troops dead. The story
finally broke onto the pages of the BBC, New York
Times, Washington Post and other mainstream press, but
all continue to hide deeper interests and distort the
realities. The heavily populated city of Mbandaka was
described as a “ghost town” and reporting ignored
civilian casualties.20,21,22
1.See Keith Harmon Snow, “Congo’s President Kabila:
Dynasty or Travesty?” Toward Freedom, Nov. 13, 2007.
2.For this report these RDF-disguised troops will be
designated “RDF” (Rwandan Defense Forces) to separate
them from other FARDC troops with Rwandan allegiances.
3.See, e.g., Spain’s Feb. 6, 2008, indictments issued
by High Court Judge Andreu Merelles charging 40
current or former high-ranking Rwandan military
officials with serious crimes, including genocide,
crimes against humanity, war crimes and terrorism,
perpetrated over a period of 12 years, from 1990 to
2002, against the civilian population and primarily
against members of the Hutu ethnic group.
4.See, e.g., Davenport and Stam, “What Really Happened
in Rwanda?” Miller-McCune, Oct. 6, 2009.
5.See, e.g., Keith Harmon Snow, “The Rwanda Genocide
Fabrications,” Dissident Voice, April 13, 2009.
6.See, e.g., Christopher Black, “The Truth About
Rwanda,” SaveRwanda.org, December 29, 2010.
7.United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR)
and OCHA.
8.Private investigations, Democratic Republic of
Congo, July-August 2006 and February-March 2007.
9.The Elwyn Blattner Groupe plantation holdings are
revealed in the 2008 documentary film Episode III:
Enjoy Poverty by Dutch filmmaker Renzo Martens.
10.United Nations: Letter dated Nov. 9, 2009, from the
Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the
Congo addressed to the chairman of the Security
Council Committee established pursuant to Resolution
1533 (2004), “leaked” November 2009.
11.Unsigned, “Armed group claims firing at U.N.
chopper in DR Congo,” AFP, Nov. 26, 2009.
12.Joe Bavier, “Congo gunmen fire at U.N. helicopter,
five wounded,” Reuters, Nov. 26, 2009.
13.Belga, “La Belgique dément tout projet d’envoi de
troupes en RDC,” RTBF, Dec. 3, 2009. ["Belgium denies
all project of sending of troops to DRC."]
14.Bemba Saolona’s company, Scibe CMMJ, was implicated
by the U.N. in smuggling weapons to UNITA during the
Angolan Civil War: Johan Peleman, “The logistics of
sanctions busting: the airborne component,” (PDF
file), p. 303.
15.In 2006-07, Police Nationale Congolaise were
outfitted with high-tech radio communications, funded
by the United Nations Development Program, purchased
from New Zealand.
16.“DR Congo troops take back town from tribal forces:
Govt.” SAPA-AFP, December 14, 2009.
17.“Equateur [DRC]: An extra 500 MONUC troops being
deployed to Dongo,” MONUC Press Briefing, December
16,2009.
18.Michael J. Kavanagh, “Thousands Flee Northern Congo
Insurgency Inspired by Mystic,” Blomberg.com.
19.Direct communications with high-level United
Nations officials in New York confirmed in late
January 2010 that UN officials in New York were
discussing the Equateur conflict, but that there were
(paraphrased) “conflicting interpretations of the
facts.”
20.Unsigned, “Troops Retake Mbandaka Airport,” BBC,
April 5, 2010.
21.Reuters, “Fighters Kill Peacekeeper in North Congo
Attack,” Washington Post, April 4, 2010.
22.Katrina Mansen & David Lewis, “UN Failed Civilians
During Rebel Attack,” Washington Post, April 9, 2010.
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